Famous Musicians Accused Of Stealing Songs
Raise your hand if you’ve heard about someone alleging Beyonce Knowles tried to take credit for their songwriting before. A recent TMZ report finds Bey in the crosshairs after a backup singer claims he had his song stolen.
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Dividing songwriting royalties is always tricky business, and to be fair, the process of songwriting is often a collaborative one. Take a look at this list of famous musicians accused of stealing songs and see what happens when things move from the studio to the courtroom.
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Photo: WENN
photo: WENN
In 2013, Paul McCartney buried the hatchet with Yoko Ono about decades-long songwriting credits for Beatles songs created when Ono accompanied the late John Lennon to the group’s studio sessions.
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Paul Simon has been repeatedly accused of jacking credit from the band Los Lobos who played along with him on the song “All Around The World Or The Myth of Fingerprints.”
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Lauryn Hill and production trio New Ark allegedly settled out of court in 2001 for $5 million based on production and writing credits for Hill’s Grammy winning 1998 album The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill.
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“Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown” initially popped up on Crazy Horse’s self-titled, 1971 debut album, with both Neil Young and Danny Whitten splitting the writing credits. Ultimately, when the track was featured on Young’s Live at the Fillmore East album in 2006, Whitten got sole writing credit.
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Nas was accused of enlisting the ghostwriting services of dead.prez and Jay Electronica for his untitled 2008 album, but all parties have continued to publicly state it was a collaborative creative effort.
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In 2007, Columbia records was faced with the decision to pull deluxe edition copies of Beyonce’s B’Day album from shelves. Timothy Attack who shared writing credits on the 1996 song “I’m Kissing You” alleged neither Sony BMG nor Beyonce received permission to use portions of the song for Beyonce’s “Still In Love (Kissing You).”
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For his 1983 album, Bark At The Moon, rocker Ozzy Osbourne let his wallet do the talking. Guitarist Jack E. Lee and bassist Bob Daisley allegedly wrote all of the songs, and then Osbourne reportedly gave them a buyout for their services.
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The royalty disagreement between Holland–Dozier–Holland and Motown got so heated that the legendary writing trio had to temporarily adopt the pen name Wayne-Dunbar. After penning upwards of 25 Motown hits, H-D-H were engaged in a 10-year legal battle with Berry Gordy Jr. over songwriting royalties.
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Usher was let off the hook in the lawsuit over who wrote his 2004 single “Bad Girl.” But the defendant, Dan Marino, likely took issues with his estranged writing partners William Guice and Dante Barton, since only Barton’s name appears on the song’s official credits.
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At one point, Los Angeles-based producer Lukas Burton had royalty payments suspended due to an ongoing dispute with singer James Blunt. Burton claimed authorship of six songs from Blunt’s 2005 album Back To Bedlam.
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The latest case of Beyonce allegedly stealing someone’s song comes courtesy of Ahmad Javon Lane. According to a TMZ report filed November 5, Lane penned a track named “XOXO,” and shared it with Beyonce’s backup singer who subsequently gave what become “XO” to Queen B.
