Rolling Stone reports The Weeknd has settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against him over his 2018 single “Call On Out My Name.” The lawsuit was filed in September 2021 by the electro duo Epikker, who claimed that “Call Out My Name” was significantly similar to their unreleased song “Vibeking.”
According to Billboard, Epikker — which consists of Suniel Fox and Henry Strange — claimed to have evidence that The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) had heard the song. Email correspondence between Epikker and Tesfaye’s “playback engineer” appeared to confirm that he’d “listened to and liked” the original song.
In a statement filed with the Los Angeles court on Friday, the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote, “The parties have reached a settlement in principle of this action. Because the parties are still in the process of formalizing, executing, and consummating that settlement, Plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court take all dates off calendar and set a date in 30 days for the parties to file a joint status report if the case has not already been dismissed.”
This isn’t the first time The Weeknd was sued by other songwriters for allegedly copying their work. In 2019, he was sued over his Starboy track “A Lonely Night” while in 2020, the band Yeasayer sued both The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar over their Black Panther song “Pray For Me.” However, that suit was dropped a month later. The Weeknd is currently one of the celebrities named in a class-action suit over the promotion of NFTs.
Source: https://uproxx.com/music/the-weeknd-call-out-my-name-lawsuit/
