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Legal
Syco settles with Avicii
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 17 August 2011
Leona Lewis and her label, Simon Cowell’s Sony imprint Syco, have settled out of court with Swedish producer Avicii over the use of his instrumental track, ‘Penguin’, as the basis for Lewis’ new single, ‘Collide’.
As previously reported, Avicii claimed that ‘Penguin’ was used without permission, and was doubly pissed off because he and his label, Ministry Of Sound, were preparing to release their own vocal version of the track, renamed ‘Fade Into Darkness’.
When Avicii first began talking about legal action, Syco was quoted in the tabloids as saying that there was “zero legal case to answer” because “Avicii is already credited as a songwriter on Leona’s song, it’s a case of sour grapes from Ministry Of Sound”. Lewis also insisted that Avicii had been aware of and had agreed to publishing splits for her version of the song.
Avicii’s manager Ash Pournouri, however, issued a statement, saying: “We never got to hear the track before it was promoed on radio, how could we clear anything? We’re not amateurs – we don’t sign papers without knowing what we’re getting into”.
With a decision on whether or not Avicii should be granted an injunction barring Lewis from releasing the single due to be made by the High Court in London this week (and with the single’s released date of 4 Sep fast approaching), Syco yesterday agreed a settlement with the producer. ‘Collide’ will now be released as planned, but further details of the agreement have not been disclosed.
In a statement, Syco said: “It is announced today that Leona Lewis and Avicii will work together on the forthcoming single of ‘Collide’. ‘Collide’ will be released on 4 Sep. Since getting its first radio play in the UK it has received rave reviews and is already topping club charts across the country”.
Avicii said via Twitter: “We’ve finally come to an agreement with Leona on all the issues. So happy to move on and focus on hit making!”
