A British music publishing company claimed 'The Hills' illicitly sampled a score from a 2013 movie titled 'The Machine'.
- December 10, 2015
AceShowbiz -
The Weeknd is being sued by Cutting Edge Music Limited for copyright infringement over his song "The Hills". The British music publishing company claims "The Hills" illicitly sampled Tom Raybould's "Revolution" from the soundtrack of a 2013 movie titled "The Machine".
The company is also suing producers Emmanuel "Mano" Nickerson, Illangelo a.k.a. Carlo Montagnese and music giants Universal, Warner Chappell, Sony/ATV and others. It contends that Mano sent Raybould a direct message on Twitter back in March.
"On or about March 9, 2015, Defendant MANO sent Raybould a Twitter direct message stating 'I sampled your music might make it 2 the weeknd next album. Huge fan of what u did 4 the machine movie!' " it says.
According to the complaint, "both the Infringing Song and the Track featuring synthesizer bass-lines performed with almost identical idiosyncratic sounds at the same register and using the same pitch sequence, melodic phase structure and rhythmic durations."
It seeks unspecified damages as well as an injunction barring further distribution of "The Hills" and The Weeknd's album "Beauty Behind the Madness" until Cutting Edge Music is given proper credit. It also calls for the song and album to be removed from distribution.
"The lawsuit speaks for itself, and I appreciate my publisher the Cutting Edge Group standing up for composers in situations like the one I'm in," Raybould said in a statement.
Representatives for The Weeknd and Universal Music Group haven't commented on the issue yet.
