The Weeknd Sued in L.A. Over Alleged Sample

LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Saucy R&B singer The Weeknd is being sued in Los Angeles for allegedly sampling a musical snippet from a film score without permission for his hit single “The Hills,” court papers obtained today show. In the lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, filed Wednesday, Cutting Edge Music contends Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye and others “blatantly copied a unique and significant portion” of the track “Revolution” from the 2013 science-fiction thriller “The Machine.” Representatives for The Weeknd could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to the complaint, producer/co-defendant Million Dollar Mano sent a Twitter message to soundtrack composer Tom Raybould during the recording of “The Hills” in March. Mano allegedly Tweeted, “I sampled your music might make it 2 the weeknd next album. Huge fan of what u did 4 the machine movie!”

The lawsuit alleges that the hit single features bass lines “with almost identical idiosyncratic sounds at the same register and using the same pitch sequence, melodic phrase structure and rhythmic durations,” elements which recur throughout the song. The Weeknd has sold 2.4 million digital copies of “The Hills” single and topped the pop charts for five weeks, according to Billboard. The 25-year-old Canadian musician recently received seven Grammy Awards nods for his “Beauty Behind the Madness” album. Raybould, who also claims unjust enrichment in the lawsuit, seeks unspecified damages as well as a permanent injunction.

CNS-12-10-2015 13:47