You (ex-Kanye West) has reached a settlement with the estate of Donna Summer to resolve a copyright lawsuit accusing him of “shamelessly” using her 1977 hit “I Feel Love” without permission in his song “Good (Don't Die).
In court Thursday, attorneys for both sides said they have “entered into a settlement agreement that is a full and final settlement of all claims in the lawsuit” and that each side will pay its own legal bills from the dispute. Neither side immediately returned requests for more information about the specific terms of the deal.
The final settlement, first announced in court last month, comes less than four months after Summer's estate sued the rapper for allegedly interfering with her track on the chart-topping “Good.” Vultures 1 album.
Countering threats of a lawsuit issued publicly weeks earlier, lawyers for the estate argued at the time that the rapper had “shamelessly used instantly recognizable parts” of her song on his track, despite the fact that her estate had already “expressly denied” him the authorization. to do.
“Summer's estate … wanted nothing to do with West's controversial history and specifically rejected West's proposed use,” her lawyers wrote. “In the face of this rejection, the defendants arrogantly and unilaterally decided that they would simply steal 'I Feel Love' and use it without permission.”
Lawyers for Summer's estate say Ye re-recorded key parts of her song “almost verbatim” and then used them as the hook for his own. The estate claims the songs were so similar that fans and critics “instantly recognized” his track as a “blatant rip-off.” The lawsuit also names album collaborator Ty Dolla $ign (Tyrone William Griffin Jr.) as defendant.
Before the case was even filed, “Good” had been pulled from streaming platforms and removed from digital download versions of the album. As of Friday, the song is still not included Vultures 1 on Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, although it is available on YouTube from unofficial accounts.
It's unclear whether Thursday's settlement will allow Ye's song to return to official release or simply resolve past copyright infringement claims regarding the original use of Summer's song. Attorneys for Ye, Ty Dolla and the estate did not respond to messages asking about the status of the song.
But at least in their original lawsuit, Summer's estate didn't seem open to collecting ongoing royalties from the controversial rapper.
“This lawsuit is about more than just the defendants' failure to pay the appropriate license fee for the use of another's musical property. It is also about the rights of artists to decide how their works are used and presented to the public and the need to prevent anyone from simply stealing creative works when they cannot secure the right to use them legally.”
Ye has been sued repeatedly for unclear samples and interference in his music.
In 2022, he was sued claiming his song “Life of the Party” illegally sampled a song by the pioneering rap group Boogie Down Productions. was indicted in another case over allegations that he used an undisclosed excerpt of Marshall Jefferson's 1986 track “Move Your Body” in the song “Flowers”; and was sued in a separate case by a Texas pastor over an alleged sample from his recorded sermon on “Come to Life'.
Prior to that, West and Pusha T were sued in 2019 for sampling George Jackson's “I Can't Do Without You” on the track “Come Back Baby.” That same year, he was sued for allegedly using an audio clip of a young girl praying in his 2016 song “Ultralight Beam.” Back in the day, West was hit with similar lawsuits over alleged unlicensed samples used on “New Slaves.” , “Bound 2” and “My Joy”.
