The Weeknd might feel like running for “The Hills” right now. Or maybe not.
The Canadian musician — real name: Abel Makkonen Tesfaye — has been slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit over his chart-topping single “The Hills,” which the suit claims infringed on the song “Revolution,” featured in the film “The Machine.”
According to the lawsuit, composer Tom Raybould was commissioned to write the score for the film, which first publicly screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2013. The soundtrack for the film, which contained the track, was released in April 2014.
The suit claims that song co-author Emmaunel Nickerson — aka. Million Dollar Mano — sent Raybould a direct message on Twitter in March 2015, telling him, “I sampled your music might make it 2 the weeknd next album. Huge fan of what you did 4 the machine movie!”
“The Hills” was released in May, rising to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The suit names numerous other defendants, including Nickerson, Universal Music Group, Republic Records and Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
Alleging copyright infringement, unjust enrichment and other counts, Cutting Edge Music (Holdings), the licensee for Raybould’s score, is asking for a decree that “The Hills” infringes on “Revolution,” and unspecified damages — or, in the alternative on the infringement count, statutory damages “in the amount of $150,000 for each infringement.”
“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 told TheWrap in a statement.
Added Cutting Edge CEO Philip Moross, “We at the Cutting Edge Group will always work aggressively to protect our copyrights and the composers who write music for us.”
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.