Kanye West and Ty Dolla surprised fans over the weekend by unexpectedly releasing “Vultures 2” after multiple delays.
However, their bold move also caused controversy when Portishead’s Geoff Barrow accused them of using a sample from the band’s 2008 song “Machine Gun” without permission.
“FFS. Not again,” Barrow wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday, along with a snippet of West and Ty’s song “Field Trip,” which includes the allegedly unauthorized excerpt.
The song features artists Kodak Black, Playboi Carti and Don Toliver.
Oh my god, not again 🤷🏼♂️ photo.twitter.com/a7SFo2t18s
— 🏴☠️ Geoff Barrow 🏴☠️ (@jetfury) August 3, 2024
In response to Barrow’s tweet, X user @morss_alex suggested, “Dude, you need to sue that motherfucker.”
Another user, @gazecloud, tweeted encouragingly, “Sue sue sue.”
“You should be recognized and compensated properly. I don’t understand why people are telling you to ignore it,” wrote @demagnetisation.
User @innerstate01 added, “Oh my god, that’s not even a sample, they just used the entire song as background music for some bad karaoke.”
They continued, “There’s no creativity at all. I hope you get compensated for that eventually, and I hope they pay double the taxes for being so boring. It sucks.”
West has been embroiled in copyright infringement lawsuits over his previous albums, including the “Donda” projects. The release of “Vultures 1” also ran into hurdles with sample licensing from the estates of Donna Summer and Ozzy Osbourne.
Summer’s estate revealed that West altered the lyrics to her 1977 song “I Feel Love” and used the re-recording for his song, “Good (Don’t Die)” after he was denied permission to use the original song. They accused the rapper of copyright infringement.
Meanwhile, Osbourne accused West of taking part of Black Sabbath’s 1983 live performance of “Iron Man” and combining it with one of his songs “Vultures 1.” without permission.
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According to legal experts, unauthorized use of a template constitutes copyright infringement.
Donald M. Woodard, an entertainment attorney, said in February that the situation seemed simple and uncontroversial to West.
Woodard clarified to Business Insider that in order for the “All of the Lights” rapper to proceed, he would have to get permission for the master recording and the underlying songwriting, suggesting that Osbourne and Summer could hold the copyright to one or both elements of the song.
The expert explained that even if West decided to re-record the track, thus avoiding the need to delete the original recording, he would still have to delete the track.
Woodard explains that incorporating musical samples is a common practice among artists in the music industry.
“The major record labels all have a testing department and they actually have someone on staff who has the listening ability and the keen eye to detect when there might be a sample or an interpolation,” the lawyer said.
“The artist would then be notified and the artist’s team would have to consider deleting the profile or removing the usage, so that’s not unusual,” he added.
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