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Kanye West has been hit with more than a dozen copyright infringement lawsuits<\/a> over his controversial career. Now one has reached a jury, with the artist now known as Ye expected to testify later this week.<\/p>\n On Monday, a panel of eight jurors heard opening statements in a federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles. From the plaintiffs\u2019 lead lawyer, they heard Ye should pay $564,046 to four musicians for using an uncleared sample of their work in an early version of his Grammy-winning song \u201cHurricane,\u201d which was played for tens of thousands of fans at a high-profile listening party for his 10th studio album, Donda, held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta in July 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n From Ye\u2019s lead lawyer, jurors heard that the Grammy-winning artist was conducting a \u201ctest drive\u201d of the sample with \u201cimplied consent\u201d from the four musicians. The lawyer said the men were \u201chappy one of the biggest stars\u201d was \u201cexperimenting\u201d with their music, and if the sample had been used on the album, which it wasn\u2019t, that is when they would \u201ctalk about money.\u201d<\/p>\n The four musicians \u2014 Khalil Abdul Rahman, Sam Barsh, Dan Seeff, and Josh Mease \u2014 are suing Ye through a company they formed in 2024, Artist Revenue Advocates. Their lawsuit initially alleged infringement of both the composition and the sound recording of their one-minute instrumental track, \u201cMSD PT2,\u201d but the case was later narrowed to a single claim involving the use of their recorded sample after it was determined they did not control their writer-side royalties under prior agreements.<\/p>\n Irene Lee, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Ye used the sample without permission or payment. She said her clients were \u201cexcited\u201d when they first learned he was interested in their work, but \u201cwhat they were offered was not fair,\u201d and they never gave consent to any commercial use.<\/p>\n \u201cThey trusted that they would be treated professionally,\u201d she said, adding that they voluntarily shared the sample with Ye\u2019s team with the expectation they would be \u201ccompensated fairly\u201d if it was used. In the end, she said, the team \u201cghosted\u201d them after the demo gained traction, leaving them feeling \u201csnubbed and ignored.\u201d Although the sample was not included on Donda, Lee said it was clearly infringed.<\/p>\n According to Lee, the track served as the lead single at the listening event. She said an expert analysis found the performance generated $5.5 million for Ye through ticket sales, merchandise, a $1.25 million streaming deal with Apple, and the fact that Ye wore a jacket onstage that he later released through his apparel deal with Gap.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is such a remarkable trial,\u201d Lee told the jury. \u201cWe have a clear admission, under oath from Ye, that he actually used our client\u2019s copyright-protected music.\u201d<\/p>\n When it was his turn, Ye\u2019s lawyer, Eduardo Martorell, said the plaintiffs were \u201ctrying to jump industries\u201d by seeking a share of apparel profits. He said Ye\u2019s global fame and more than 60 Grammy nominations drove the listening party ticket sales, \u201cnot a one-minute and one-second instrumental.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t think we should be here,\u201d Martorell told the jurors. \u201cThis lawsuit should never have been filed. The artists led my client to believe he had permission to use their music every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Seeff, the bass player on the sample, was the first witness called to the stand Monday afternoon. \u201cI\u2019m here today to tell our story,\u201d he said. \u201c[MSD PT2] is the basis of \u2018Hurricane.\u2019 All the music you hear in \u2018Hurricane\u2019 comes from that. It\u2019s repeated.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t clear on Monday when Ye will testify, but the trial is slated to last a week. Ye recently took the stand at a different trial a block away in downtown Los Angeles. During that state trial, Ye appeared to doze off<\/a> while he was being questioned by the lawyer for Tony Saxon, the man who was awarded $140,000<\/a> for injuries suffered while working at the rapper-producer\u2019s $57 million Malibu beach home.<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kanye West has been hit with more than a dozen copyright infringement lawsuits over his controversial career. Now one has reached a jury, with the artist now known as Ye expected to testify later this week. On Monday, a panel of eight jurors heard opening statements in a federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles. From […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2402780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[337115,469393,24510],"class_list":["post-2402779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-downtown-los-angeles","tag-irene-lee","tag-kanye-west"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Kanye-West-\u2018Hurricane-Copyright-Infringement-Trial-\u2018Snubbed-Musicians-Ask-for.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2402781,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402779\/revisions\/2402781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2402780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}