Ye faces copyright trial over use of instrumental track at listening party

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Ye, the rapper previously known as Kanye West, went on trial Monday in a copyright infringement dispute over his use of an instrumental track for an early version of his Grammy winning single “Hurricane” during a 2021 listening party.

Ye used the one-minute and one-second long recording created in 2018 by a group of four musicians and producers in a downtown Los Angeles studio, to sing over when he performed “80 degrees” — an earlier version of “Hurricane” — at a sold-out listening party at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, that was live streamed by Apple.

But while Ye has admitted he used the track referred to as MSD PT2 and produced by Khalil Abdul-Rahman, professionally known as DJ Khalil, he never compensated the creators for the use of their music, Irene Lee, an attorney for the plaintiffs told the federal jury in LA.

“They flat out refused to compensate the artists,” Lee said in her opening statement. “They ghosted the artists for years.”

DJ Khalid and the other musicians transferred their rights in MSD PT2 to Artist Revenue Advocates, a limited liability company, which brought the lawsuit in 2024.

Initially, the company claimed copyright infringement for the versions of “Hurricane” and “Moon” that appeared on Ye’s 2021 album “Donda.” However, U.S. District Judge Michelle Williams Court ruled in February, on summary judgment, that Artist Revenue Advocates couldn’t sue for infringement of their copyright in the composition of MSD PT2 because that copyright wasn’t transferred by the musicians to the company in writing.

That has left the plaintiff with only an infringement claim based on their copyright in the sound recording of MSD PT2, which was properly transferred in writing by DJ Khalil.

As a result, Artist Revenue Advocates can’t seek damages based on any purported use of MSD PT2 in Ye’s songs based on similarity. And since Ye didn’t use the actual sound recording of the track in the songs on “Donda,” all that is left for the plaintiff is his use of the actual track during the 2021 listening party.

The damages Artist Revenue Advocates claim for that use of the recording is no less than $564,000 based on the revenue they say Ye received from ticket sales, merchandise sales and the money Apple paid to live stream show, as well as from apparel sales for the outfit he sported during the show that was part of his collaboration with GAP at the time.

Eduardo Martorell, an attorney for Ye and his various corporate entities, told the jury that the four musicians had given the rapper an implicit right to use their track as he was “test driving” it for use in one of his songs.

DJ Khalid had given the track along with several others to a producer in 2018 to shop around to see if any major recording artists were interested in using it, as is normal practice in the music industry, Martorell said in his opening statement.

By putting their music out the way they did, Martorell argued, the four musicians led Ye to believe that he could use it the way he did by experimenting with it in the expectation that they would be compensated once it was commercially released.

“This puts them on the map,” Martorell said. “The only way they’re going to make money is if it’s commercially released.”

Moreover, the attorney said, not only were the musicians given credit as co-writers of the song and DJ Khalid credit as a co-producer, they also were paid royalties for their contribution to Ye’s final version until the litigation started.

According to Martorell, Artist Revenue Advocates, whose ownership he said was a mystery, was created in 2024 for the sole purpose of bringing the copyright case against Ye, and the company paid the four musicians $1 million for their copyright interest in the track.

The first witness to take the stand Monday afternoon was Dan Seeff, a bass player who said he has been participating in jam sessions with DJ Khalil since 2005.

The musicians, he told the jury, would work together for sometimes hours on tracks that DJ Khalid would “use his magic on” afterward to refine them.

When a demo version of Ye’s song based on their track was first leaked in 2018 on Instagram, Seeff said, he was excited because they believed it was put out to generate interest for an eventual release. However, the album that they had expected Ye to put out at that time never materialized, and it wasn’t until 2021 that the track reemerged at the listening party.

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