Kanye West's record label Universal Music is being sued over the rapper’s use of a sample from King Crimson’s song 21st Century Schizoid Man in a case that King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp says, "has been dragging on for several years."
Variety has reported that the rights holder of the track from the English prog rock band’s 1969 debut album In the Court of the Crimson King is taking action over West’s use of the song on his track Power.
The mechanical rights holder to 21st Century Schizoid Man, Declan Colgan Music Ltd, claims that Universal have underpaid streaming royalties for the use of that song on Power.
Power appears on West’s 2010 album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and members of King Crimson are listed in the credits for the track.
According to Variety, Universal and Declan Colgan Music have an agreement that pays King Crimson a royalty rate of 5.33 per cent for copies of Power that are sold or "otherwise exploited."
Lawyers for Declan Colgan Music claim Universal are paying an insufficient amount for streams of Power.
According to Variety, the rights holder is claiming that Universal "failed, and continues to fail, to comply with its royalty accounting obligations."
In a post on Facebook, Fripp said: "There is a longer story to be told, and likely to astound innocents and decent, ordinary people who believe that one is paid equitably for their work, and on the appointed payday.
"This dispute has been dragging on for several years, unnecessarily IMO," he added.
He added that the band’s lawyers are the same one who won Ed Sheeran’s recent Shape of You copyright case.
"Meanwhile and interesting factoid: the barrister acting for us is Ian Mill QC of Blackstone Chambers who just won Ed Sheeran’s case here in the UK and seen off the charge of plagiarism levelled against Ed," Fripp said.
