Published
Tue, Mar 21, 2023, 09:10
- Producers Suniel Fox and Henry Strange claimed that the track is nearly identical to their 2015 cut "Vibeking."
Two musicians who sued The Weeknd, Nicolás Jaar and Canadian producer Frank Dukes for copyright infringement say that they've reached a settlement with the three artists.
Suniel Fox and Henry Strange filed a lawsuit in 2021 claiming that "Call Out My Name"—a 2018 track from The Weeknd's My Dear Melancholy EP that samples Jaar's 2016 cut "Killing Time"—is "strikingly and/or substantially similar, if not identical," to their 2015 track "Vibeking."
The Weeknd previously denied the allegation, but lawyers for Fox and Strange said that they "reached a settlement in principle of this action" in a filing at Los Angeles federal court last Friday, March 17th. Terms of the agreement weren't disclosed, and the notice said the two camps were "still in the process of formalising, executing and consummating" the deal.
According to the BBC, Fox and Strange claimed to have evidence that The Weeknd had heard their song before writing "Call Out My Name." They said they sent their track to The Weeknd's DJ and playback engineer Eric White in 2015, who responded saying "it's fire." The following year, White contacted Strange again saying he sent the track to The Weeknd, who "listened and liked it."
White allegedly then sent Strange another update. "Just gonna tell [The Weeknd] that our production team wrote the track," he wrote. "Cool? Or do you have another idea? Just don't wanna say 'hey, [Strange] wrote this' when he doesn't know you." Despite that, Fox and Strange insisted that they were never asked for permission to use or license their song.
Since its release, "Call Out My Name" has amassed 1.3 billion Spotify streams and 850 million YouTube streams. The Weeknd, Jaar and Dukes are yet to respond publicly to the decision.
Listen to "Call Out My Name," and read our recent article discussing the ethics of sampling.