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Legal
Kanye song theft case rests on Nietzsche quote
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 28 November 2011
A previously reported song-theft lawsuit involving Kanye West is still rumbling its way through the US courts, though the rapper’s lawyer wants the case dismissed, partly on the basis that, just because her client, like the claimant, nicked a line from the work of nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche for his rap, that doesn’t mean he infringed the litigant’s copyright.
As previously reported, Vince P, or Vincent Peters, says he sent a copy of his song ‘Stronger’ to West’s manager back in 2006. A track of the same name then appeared on West’s 2007 album ‘Graduation’ with some similarities to his work, namely both mentioned Kate Moss, and both had a play on the Nietzsche maxim “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”, rhyming ‘stronger’ with both ‘longer’ and ‘wronger’. Peters claims West stole his song without permission.
But the claimant failed at first instance, with a US judge ruling that there wasn’t enough similarity between the two songs for there to be a case of copyright infringement, with the most similar line not being original on either counts. But Peters is appealing, which is why West’s lawyer Carrie Hall has had to submit new papers calling for the case against her client to be dismissed.
According to Billboard, Hall submitted her dismissal application earlier this month, arguing Peters had failed to back up his claim that West’s song was substantially similar to his, and that the lower court’s judgement on the matter should therefore stand. She added that if Peters were to succeed in his copyright infringement claim, based simply on a one word title, reference to Moss and the use of a famous maxim, “it would create a dangerously low threshold for establishing copyright protection over otherwise commonplace words and phrases”.
We await the judge’s response to Hall’s submission.
