Kanye West Faces New Lawsuit

Kanye West has been targeted by Bishop David Paul Moten after claims that Ye used a recording of bishop’s sermons without permission. The sample was used in Ye’s new song “Come to Life” on the album Donda, and it does include a long sermon. A copy of the lawsuit was obtained by TMZ.

The lawsuit points out that “Come to Life” is 5 minutes and 10 seconds long, and the sample of Moten’s sermon in it is 1 minute and 10 seconds long. This is more than 20 percent of the song in total, and according to fair use laws, this is more than Ye was entitled to use without permission or licensing rights. The lawsuit accuses Ye of “willfully and egregiously sampling sound recordings of others without consent or permission.”

The lawsuit also names UMG Recordings, Def Jam Recordings and G.O.O.D Music. Moten is reportedly seeking damages from all of these entities in addition to Ye. So far, Ye has not responded publicly to this lawsuit. His representatives and legal team have not issued any public comments either.

This is the second major lawsuit to target Ye’s music in the last month. The first came from the company Declan Colgan Music Ltd, which owns the mechanical rights to the song “21st Century Schizoid Man” my King Crimson. Ye sampled that song in his 2010 hit “Power,” and Declan Colgan Music just sued Universal Music Group for the unauthorized sample in April, according to a report by Variety.

That lawsuit is slightly more complicated — it claims that Declan Colgan Music is being underpaid for streaming royalties by UMG when it comes to this particular song. Ye originally sampled “21st Century Schizoid” man without a creative license or permission from King Crimson, and after his music became popular, Declan Colgan Music and UMG reached a deal to avoid a lawsuit. They agreed that UMG would pay King Crimson a 5.3 percent royalty for “Power,” and now Declan Colgan Music is claiming that it has not received enough.

Of course, most fans know that on top of these two lawsuits, Ye is locked in a prolonged legal battle with his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. Ye has changed his tune on their divorce several times, sometimes saying that the split is amicable and other times fighting against it every step of the way. At the time of this writing, both are legally single, but the divorce proceedings themselves are not over.