Rick Astley sues Yung Gravy for “vocal impersonation”
Rick Astley has filed a lawsuit against the rapper Yung Gravy over the song Betty (Get Money) released in 2022.
Yung Gravy’s song Betty (Get Money) borrows heavily from the melody for Astley’s 1987 hit Never Gonna Give You Up and also features the singer Nick Seeley aka Popnick imitating Rick Astley’s distinctive voice.
Rick Astley filed a lawsuit on Thursday 26 January at Los Angeles Superior Court claiming the song violates his right of publicity and the right to control the commercial exploitation of his identity by featuring Popnick’s impersonation.
“In an effort to capitalise off the immense popularity and goodwill of Mr Astley, defendants… conspired to include a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of Mr Astley’s voice” the lawsuit states. “The public could not tell the difference.”
Rick Astley’s lawsuit seeks “millions of dollars” in damages as well as profits from the song.
Yung Gravy and Popnick are among the defendants together with Yung Gravy’s record label, Universal Music Group’s Republic Records.
The complaint also relies on a 1988 case in which Bette Midler successfully sued Ford Motor Co for using a soundalike in a commercial even though Ford had licensed her song Do You Want To Dance for an advert.
According to Rick Astley’s team, “a licence to use the original underlying musical composition does not authorise the stealing of the artist’s voice in the original recording”.
Yung Gravy (real name Matthew Hauri) is a 26-year-old rapper born in Rochester, Minnesota who rose to prominence following the release of his 2016 debut single, Mr Clean, which went on to be certified platinum.
Betty (Get Money) is his most successful track to date, reaching number 30 on the US Billboard chart and going viral on TikTok.
In an interview with Billboard following the song’s release, he spoke about the Astley sample, saying: “I always thought that sample would be sick to do something with. I just never figured it was clearable.”
Rick Astley’s song Never Gonna Give You Up has surpassed a billion YouTube views
Rick Astley, 56, rose to fame through the Stock Aitken Waterman label – also home to Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan – in the 1980s. Never Gonna Give You Up was his biggest hit, topping charts around the world.
“Rickrolling,”
About 20 years later, the song saw a resurgence thanks to the Rickroll internet meme, in which the track unexpectedly interrupts unrelated content in the world of bait-and-switch hyperlinks .
In 2021, the song passed a billion views on YouTube.
Samples vs. Interpolations
Gravy and his record label obtained the appropriate copyright licence to recreate the melody and lyrics from “Never Gonna Give You Up” which Rick Astley did not write and does not control for “Betty (Get Money).”
As pointed out in Astley’s complaint, however “A license to use the original underlying musical composition does not authorize the stealing of the artist’s voice in the original recording.” Gravy and his team wre not granted a license to sample the master recording “so, instead, they resorted to theft of Mr. Astley’s voice without a license and without agreement.”
Astley’s complaint quotes an August 2022 interview with Billboard in which Yung Gravy admits that “we basically remade the whole song” with “a different singer and instruments, but it was all really close because it makes it easier legally.”
There are separate copyrights in the underlying composition, the lyrics, musical arrangement and the sound recording of that song. Appropriate clearances are needed for each.
Sampling
Sampling involves taking part of an existing sound recording and incorporating it into a new work. When a sound recording sample incorporates an underlying composition (as is often the case), licences to use both copyrights are typically required. Some famous samples include Eminem’s lift of Dada’s “Thank You” in “Stan” and M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes,” which samples the opening riff from “Straight to Hell” by the Clash.
Interpolations
An interpolation involves taking part of an existing musical composition (as opposed to a sound recording) and incorporating it into a new work. Interpolation does not involve the use of any actual sounds from a pre-existing recording. Instead a new audio is recorded.
Famous interpolations include Ariana Grande’s use of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things” in “7 Rings” and Taylor Swift’s interpolation of Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” in “Look What You Made Me Do.”
Primary Wave
The publishing rights to “Never Gonna Give You Up” is owned by Primary Wave, a prolific purchaser of publishing rights to catalogues tied to Bob Marley, Nirvana, and Prince. Primary Wave bought the rights to “Never Gonna Give You Up” as part of songwriter Pete Waterman’s catalogue.
Primary Wave licensed the right to use the “Never Gonna Give You Up” composition to Yung Gravy’s team, which allowed them to copy the lyrics and melody, but not to record the actual sounds from the sound recording.
Copyright Law
Whilst some of the fundamental protections are consistent, Copyright law varies from territory to territory
U.S. Copyright Office, “Permission from the copyright owner of a pre-existing sound recording is not necessary when interpolating a musical work, regardless of how similar the new recording may be to an old recording. This is because, under U.S. copyright law, the exclusive rights in sound recordings do not extend to making independently recorded ‘soundalike’ recordings.”
17 U.S.C. § 114(b), of the Copyright Act limits the exclusive rights of the owner of a sound recording copyright to (1) the right to duplicate the “actual sounds” fixed in the recording, and (2) the right to prepare derivative works in which those actual sounds are “rearranged, remixed, or otherwise altered in sequence or quality.”
House Judiciary Committee Notes to Copyright Act section 114(b) state that “Mere imitation of a recorded performance would not constitute a copyright infringement even where one performer deliberately sets out to simulate another’s performance as exactly as possible.”
“The exclusive rights of the owner of copyright in a sound recording . . . do not extend to the making or duplication of another sound recording that consists entirely of an independent fixation of other sounds, even though such sounds imitate or simulate those in the copyrighted sound recording.”
Copyright Vs Right of Publicity
Rick Astley is not suing for copyright infringement. Instead, he is claiming that the imitation of his voice is a violation of California’s right of publicity law, which protects against the unauthorized use an individual’s name, image, likeness, voice and other attributes of the person’s identity.
Midler v. Ford Motor Co.
Ninth Circuit’s 1988 opinion in Midler v. Ford Motor Co.held that California’s common law right of publicity can be violated “when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product.”
Ford’s ad agency licensed the musical composition “Do You Wanna Dance” for use in a Mercury Sable commercial. The song had been made famous by Bette Midler, but Midler’s representatives would not license the sound recording featuring Midler’s voice. The ad agency therefore hired one of Bette Midler’s former backup singers, Ula Hedwig, and told her to “sound as much as possible like the Bette Midler record.”
The Ninth Circuit held that Midler could not state a claim under California’s right of publicity statute, Civil Code section 3344, because the “voice” used in the commercial was Hedwig’s, not Midler’s. The court did, however, permit Midler to pursue a right of publicity claim under California common law which complements the state statute and more broadly protects against the misappropriation of a person’s identity, including vocal performances. For the Ninth Circuit, to impersonate Midler’s distinctive voice was “to pirate her identity” giving birth to the concept of “vocal appropriation”.
Astley’s claim, however, is not in regards to a commercial. US courts routinely accept that songs, books, filmsand other works of creative expression receive greater free speech protection under the First Amendment than commercial speech.
Tom Waits & the Doritos radio commercial
Waits sued the snack food manufacturer and its advertising agency for voice misappropriation and false endorsement following the broadcast of a radio commercial for SalsaRio Doritos which featured a vocal performance imitating Waits’ raspy singing voice. The jury awarded Waits a total of $2 million in punitive damages for voice misappropriation: $1.5 million against Tracy-Locke and $500,000 against Frito–Lay
State Law Vs Federal Law
U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, Article VI, Paragraph 2, “the Laws of the United States . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land.” This means that federal law takes precedence over state laws when the two laws are in conflict
Aaron Moss points out “The First Amendment and the Copyright Act should both prevent Rick Astley’s from prevailing on his right of publicity claim. Astley is also alleging a violation of the federal Lanham Act, which protects against consumer confusion. He may be able to state a valid claim for false endorsement if, as the complaint alleges, the defendants affirmatively and falsely represented that Astley endorsed “Betty (Get Money).” However, to the extent the claim is based on nothing more than the distribution of the song itself, it should be also barred by the First Amendment.
A ruling in Rick Astley’s favor in this case would effectively give a monopoly to the first performer of a song even if, as in Astley’s case, the singer didn’t write the song or own a copyright interest in the composition. Performers of cover songs would face legal risk if their voices sounded too similar to the first singer—or, for that matter, to any other singer who had previously performed the song—even if they complied with federal copyright law.
At the very least, Midler and Waits should be limited to right of publicity cases in which a vocal imitation is used to sell a product, as opposed to a claim seeking to prevent the dissemination of an expressive work.”
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ChatGPT
“The Melodic Echoes of Deceit: A Tale of Two Voices in a Battle for Authorship”
In the realm of popular music, there are few who can claim to have left a lasting impact on the cultural landscape. But one artist, Rick Astley, will forever be remembered as the king of the meme-inspired musical phenomenon known as “rickrolling.” However, a recent lawsuit has shed light on a dark underbelly of this beloved musical legacy, as two voices clash in a tale of deception, imitation, and the quest for artistic recognition.
At the center of this drama is a man named Howard Jones, who claims to have been wrongfully denied credit for his role as a Rick Astley soundalike in a popular advertisement. Jones asserts that he was hired to mimic Astley’s iconic baritone for a commercial, only to have his contribution erased from the final product. In the eyes of the law, the question is simple: does Jones have a legitimate claim to the work he created, or was he merely a hired gun, devoid of any ownership rights?
For fans of Astley’s music, the lawsuit raises deeper questions about the boundaries of artistic imitation and the limits of copyright law. In a world where sampling, remixing, and reimagining have become the norm, is there still room for originality, or have we surrendered to the infinite echo of other people’s creations? And in a case where one artist’s voice is so closely associated with a global phenomenon, how can the law determine who truly deserves the right to lay claim to that legacy?
The trial has not yet reached its conclusion, but the outcome will undoubtedly shape the future of music and the fight for recognition in an industry where imitation is all too often seen as the sincerest form of flattery. The world watches with bated breath as two voices, one echoing the other, battle it out in a courtroom, with the future of artistic expression hanging in the balance.
For those who have followed Rick Astley’s rise to fame, and the countless imitators who have sought to emulate his sound, this lawsuit is more than just a legal dispute – it is a seminal moment in the ongoing struggle for authorship in the digital age. And for all those who have been “rickrolled” over the years, this is a story about the power of music to unite us, even as we stand divided by the echoes of our own creations.
Samples vs. Interpolations
Gravy and his record label obtained the appropriate copyright licence to recreate the melody and lyrics from “Never Gonna Give You Up” (which Astley did not write and does not control) for “Betty (Get Money).”
But according to Astley’s complaint, “A license to use the original underlying musical composition does not authorize the stealing of the artist’s voice in the original recording.” Gravy and his team couldn’t get a license to sample the master recording. “So, instead, they resorted to theft of Mr. Astley’s voice without a license and without agreement.”
Yung Gravy “Betty (Get Money)”
Astley’s complaint quotes an August 2022 interview with Billboard in which Yung Gravy admits that “we basically remade the whole song” with “a different singer and instruments, but it was all really close because it makes it easier legally.”
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