Universal Music Group is facing a lawsuit over the King Crimson sample in Kanye West’s “Power,” Law360 and Variety report. Famously, the single uses a sample of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man,” and mechanical rights holder Declan Colgan Music Ltd claims that UMG has underpaid streaming royalties for “Power.” Pitchfork has contacted representatives for UMG and attorneys for DCM for comment and more information.
“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, UMG and DCM have an agreement that pays King Crimson a royalty rate of 5.33% for copies of “Power” that are sold or “otherwise exploited.” The agreement also allegedly specifies that DCM’s royalties are to be distributed in the same way as West’s, and the rapper’s contract with UMG allegedly stipulated that he’d receive equivalent royalty figures for streaming tracks and physical song sales.
The issue, according to DCM and its lawyers, is that UMG is paying an insufficient rate to DCM for streams of “Power.” The label is apparently paying DCM a percentage of what it receives from streams—a lower amount than what CD sales would have produced.
In a statement posted to Facebook, King Crimson’s Robert Fripp wrote, “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.” He noted that the band’s attorney is the same one who won Ed Sheeran’s recent “Shape of You” copyright case.
DCM filed its lawsuit in the United Kingdom’s High Court of Justice. Similarly, Four Tet has gone to the High Court with a lawsuit that also involves the translation of royalty rates into the streaming era. The lawsuits come amid UK lawmakers’ efforts to examine the streaming economy.
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