Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Kanye West Sued by Donna Summer's Estate


Two weeks ago the estate of pop star Donna Summer called out Kanye West for sampling Summer's 1977 mega smash, "I Feel Love" after being denied permission [click here if you missed that].

Now Donna Summer's estate is taking Ye to court...

From TMZ
The song in question is called "Good (Don't Die)" ... and it was actually included in the tracklist at first when KW dropped 'Vultures 1' on Feb. 10 across different streaming platforms.
In the suit, filed by attorney Larry Stein, Donna's estate claims Ye and Ty Dolla $ign approached them about a month ago -- on Jan. 31, 2024, they say -- to request clearance on her iconic hit ... but the estate flatly denied them.
The estate says Summer's estate still controls a portion of the copyright -- and claims Ye and company approached them a little more than a week before the release date for the new song ... with Kanye apparently wanting to drop the album on Feb. 9, with the song in the mix.
The estate says because of Ye's rep lately -- presumably the controversies surrounding his antisemitic comments and other public statements -- Donna's estate decided her song being used on his album wasn't going to do them any good ... so they say they passed, and rejected his ask for the sample.
Despite this, Donna's estate claims Ye dropped the album anyway with "Good (Don't Die)" on there ... and it showed up on Apple, Spotify and other major streaming/music platforms.
They claim Ye attempted to get around the denial by creating an interpolation of Donna's song instead of the actual track --- but Donna's estate claims the workaround doesn't insulate them from copyright infringement.
Donna's estate says they contacted Apple, Spotify and other streamers to ask they yank the song -- which may explain why Kanye's album briefly disappeared the weekend it was released. Eventually, it was re-uploaded -- but "Good (Don't Die)" is now removed from the list.
However, in the time it took for all this to happen ... Donna's estate claims the song had been streamed millions of times -- and they allege they've been harmed as a result.
The estate is asking for major damages and an injunction blocking further distribution of the song with the infringing sample. We've reached out to Ye ... no word back yet.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one that didn’t know that the girl (Vanessa) who got pregnant by Junior on the show “My wife and kids”, is Donna Summers daughter?

R in NYC said...

Koonye is trash. Next!

Anonymous said...

I hate him.

Anonymous said...

What 10:23 AM said.
I never saw anything "genius" about this basic rapper.

mil262 said...

Good for them make the Genius( what he calls himself) pay

Anonymous said...

Donna had everything stolen by her record company when she was alive. Now Ye is making sure she can't even rest in peace.

Anonymous said...

GOOD!!!!! Cause he’s go crazIER if somebody STOLE his music! I pray the Summer family take millions from him & don’t cut him no slack.

Anonymous said...

Nope, you caint always get what you want. Thank the Lord,.. Donna was a truly gifted mega Singer, and true Christian, Classy lady who stood on her belief. Her daughters wereare// Beautiful young women,, Thank God her Estate, Attorney, & Wonderful family WILL ON HER BEHALF & NO TOLERATE THIS F__L

Naila Thrower said...

I'm so sorry. All due respect to the disco queen but uhh..at first glance of the pic am I the only one who thought that was k michelle with a big ass wig on next to kanye?

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