The Weeknd leaves behind an alleged plagiarism… but not Portishead – jenesaispop.com

The Weeknd has reached a legal agreement with the two people who accused him of plagiarizing his song ‘Vibeking’ on ‘Call Out My Name’. The terms of the agreement have not been made public. The case will therefore not reach the courts and the lawsuit is expected to be dismissed in the coming days.

The lawsuit came to fruition in 2021, when Suniel Fox and Henry Strange, members of electronica duo Epikker, accused Abel Tesfaye of copying elements of ‘Vibeking’ on ‘Call Out My Name’, including its unusual 6/8 tempo. The lawsuit also named Nicolas Jaar because ‘Call Out My Name’ contains a sample of his song ‘Killing Time’. However, Jaar clarified that he had no part in the creation of ‘Call Out My Name’.

Although ‘Vibeking’ was an unreleased song at the time of the lawsuit – and to this day – Fox and Strange claimed to have proof that Tesfaye had heard ‘Vibeking’ before releasing ‘Call Out My Name’. Specifically, they exposed emails that they had exchanged with producer Eric White, in which he informed them that Tesfaye had heard the song and that she had thought it “great”.

In the complaint, Fox and Strange asked for a portion of the profits made from ‘Call Out My Name’ in the past and going forward. It is a mammoth success of The Weeknd that exceeds one billion views on Spotify.

Seizing the opportunity, Geoff Barrow of Portishead has remembered that the ‘Machine Gun’ case remains unsolved. “That’s good news for the artists he plagiarized… Maybe it’s time to have a talk with his lawyers about the song that plagiarized us.” Barrow has spent years fighting to prove that Tesfaye copied the ‘Machine Gun’ backing track on ‘Belong to the World’ after the Portishead member turned down the Brit’s proposal to sample the song. Barrow has said that he has not wanted to reach a legal agreement with The Weeknd and that he does not know if he would today.

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The Weeknd leaves behind an alleged plagiarism… but not Portishead – jenesaispop.com