In Artist Revenue Advocates v. West, et al., a jury in the C.D. California had ruled against Kanye West (a/k/a Ye), and Ye demanded the judge who had presided over the trial to wipe out the verdict. Not surprisingly, the judge declined to second-guess the jury (or herself).
In 2018, four musicians made a minute-long instrumental called “MSD PT2.” Ye got hold of it and worked it into an early demo of “Hurricane.” That demo, sample and all, played for roughly 40,000 fans at the first listening party for the album Donda in Atlanta in July 2021. In the final version of “Hurricane,” the sample was deleted. On the one hand, the musicians got songwriter and producer credit; on the other hand, they didn’t get paid.
The musicians assigned their rights to an entity, Artist Revenue Advocates, which sued Ye and his companies in 2024. Before trial, the court tossed the claims for infringement of the underlying composition on summary judgment, because the musicians did not properly transfer those rights in writing. Only one claim survived — unauthorized use of the sound recording at the (very large) listening party. A jury heard that claim in May and ruled against defendants. Ye fought back with post-trial motions – but each of them failed.
Ye first argued that because part of one musician’s assignment to ARA improperly tried to transfer composition rights that someone else controlled, the whole assignment was void — including the sound recording rights. The court disagreed. Under California law, a contract with separate, distinct parts survives even if one part is unenforceable. The document cleanly transferred the sound recording rights in one section and fumbled the composition rights in another. Those sections could be split apart, so ARA’s standing to sue over the sample held up.
Ye also argued he had an express oral license to use the sample. He pointed to emails about “production terms.” But his own manager testified the parties never agreed on royalty splits, and Ye admitted at trial that he pulled the sample after the first listening party because it “was not cleared.” That was conflicting evidence for a jury to sort out — not grounds to overturn a verdict.
The implied-license argument was the most interesting one. Ye wanted the jury to focus on whether the plaintiff composers intended him to use their track. The court instead used the Ninth Circuit’s standard test for an “implied license”, which asks whether the defendant requested the work, the artist delivered it, and the artist intended the defendant to use it. Ye testified he never asked the musicians to create MSD PT2 at all — so even his preferred jury instruction wouldn’t have helped him. The court also rejected a joint-authorship argument built on nothing more than one of the musicians’ knowing that Ye might use the track and not objecting, even “celebrating” that the track would be included in a big hit. The court wrote, “Letting it become co-authorship would punish any artist who dares celebrate their own work before suing over it.”
On damages, Ye argued ARA needed consumer surveys or focus groups to connect the infringement to the revenue. The court disagreed — California law only requires gross revenue tied reasonably to the infringement, and ARA’s expert did that, walking through ticket sales, a streaming deal, merchandise, and even a jacket Ye debuted that night. The general verdict form was fine too; the jury didn’t need to itemize its math. Ye’s remaining complaints — excluded experts, an authentication fight, a sustained objection during closing, a blocked remote witness — weren’t successful or enough for a new trial, either.
Perhaps Ye and his entourage had assumed that merely associating the musicians with his success by crediting them on a hit recording was good enough to satisfy any hungry artist, and that actually paying them wasn’t necessary. Notably, the parties didn’t even discuss, let alone agree, to customary industry “splits” of the revenue stream. To be sure, the lack of documentation cut both ways, and courts are not inclined to forgive sloppy paperwork. ARA’s biggest claim (a share of the hit recording “Hurricane”) died in February because nobody wrote down the composition assignment correctly. On the other hand, the sound recording claim survived because the same messy document could be split into a good half and a bad half.
“Business as usual” didn’t survive a trial, nor could it rescue Ye’s motions to reverse the jury’s verdict. Maybe doing business “unusually” (and more meticulously) would have avoided this failed attempt to avoid compensating the musicians who contributed to this hit recording.
