Grammy-nominated songwriter Jon Hume has filed a lawsuit in opposition to Common Music Group and Common Music Group Australia in a dispute over audio stems utilized in Dean Lewis’s hit, Be Alright.
The lawsuit was filed by Australia-born, however now Nashville-based Hume, in a Tennessee court docket on Wednesday (June 19).
Hume has labored with artists together with Dean Lewis (Be Alright, Half A Man and How Do I Say Goodbye), in addition to Sofi Tukker, Bebe Rexha, JP Cooper, NEEDTOBREATHE and Calum Scott.
Launched in 2018, Be Alright has been streamed over 1.7 billion occasions on Spotify alone.
Hume says within the lawsuit that he and Lewis, a UMG/UMG Australia artist, composed Be Alright “on or about September 2015″.
He provides that, whereas they have been writing and recording the demo for the track, Hume created numerous audio tracks i.e “stems” of him enjoying every instrument used within the demo.
Hume claims that he “additionally acted because the producer and, utilizing his musical stems, created the unique recording of Be Alright”.
The lawsuit claims additional: “Hume, solely, produced the Unique Recording and carried out and recorded each instrument, excluding Dean Lewis’ vocal, embodied on it.
“Every of these recordings of musical devices was recorded on a person stem, which, when mixed, composed the whole thing of the sounds embodied on the Unique Recording, apart from the Dean Lewis vocal tracks.”
Hume claims in his lawsuit, which you’ll be able to learn in full right here, that later in 2016, then-UMG Australia MD Michael Taylor requested through e-mail in July 2016 “that Hume ship the Stems to a different producer”.
In that very same e-mail, addressed to Hume, and his spouse and supervisor Karen Hume, Taylor instructed the Humes that “so as to save time – and cash” the Stems recorded through the writing of Be Alright “have been for use as ‘reference’ solely and that “no utilization of the Stems from the demo [a reference to the Original Recording] would go into the Grasp.”
Hume alleges that Michael Taylor then emailed him the next month to ask if UMG might use the unique Stems “in the primary” and that the e-mail “closed with a ‘smiley face’ image”.
In keeping with the lawsuit, UMG Australia and Hume then mentioned giving Hume a producer credit score on Be Alright due the anticipated use of the audio stems. On Spotify, he’s at present credited as a songwriter on the monitor.
However Hume says within the grievance that on Could 1, 2018, former UMG Australia MD Michael Taylor, on behalf of the corporate “purposefully and deliberately suggested the Humes” that UMG Australia didn’t find yourself utilizing any of the Stems from the writing session with Dean Lewis within the closing grasp recording in any case.
The lawsuit then alleges that in December 2023, Dean Lewis offered Jon Hume with the “complete assortment of stems comprising the Launched Grasp [of Be Alright] as a reference for one more track for which Dean Lewis was in search of Jon Hume’s companies”.
He claims that when he acquired these stems he “found that, opposite to UMG’s representations, greater than fifty % (50%) of the Stems embodied within the Unique Recording have been additionally embodied within the Launched Grasp”.
“Opposite to UMG’s representations, greater than fifty % (50%) of the STEMS embodied within the Unique Recording have been additionally embodied within the Launched Grasp.”
Lawsuit filed by Jon Hume
Hume is suing UMG and UMG Australia for copyright infringement, alleging that they “misappropriated the sounds embodied on the Stems and that they “hid and misrepresented to [Hume] that they haven’t used the Stems”.
Hume’s grievance additionally says that UMG “has claimed and registered a Copyright within the sound recording of the Launched Grasp embodying [Hume’s] sounds” and that “the Defendants have straight infringed Plaintiff’s Copyright within the Stems”.
He seeks “statutory damages, compensatory damages, cheap attorneys’ charges, and prices from [UMG] for his or her direct infringements”.
He additionally seeks “an accounting of all ‘income’ as outlined in 17 U.SC. § 504, attributable to the infringements acquired” by UMG.
Moreover, Hume has requested that “within the various” to his copyright infringement declare, he needs the court docket to difficulty “a declaration” stating that “he’s a joint writer and certified copyright claimant of the Launched Grasp”.
He claims {that a} “substantial controversy” exists “between himself and the defendants “as as to if [Hume] is an writer of the launched grasp” recording or not. The lawsuit continues: “Declaration by the Court docket would terminate the controversy between Plaintiff and Defendants.”
Hume’s lawsuit additionally claims that he has a “proper to an accounting from Defendants of any and all income obtained as a direct or oblique results of Defendants’ exploitation of the Launched Grasp, and to fee of Plaintiffs’ share of such income”.
The grievance continues: “Defendants have an obligation to account for income obtained, derived, or ensuing from the exploitation of the Launched Grasp, together with, however not restricted to, some other particular person or entity performing underneath a license, sublicense, lease and/or switch of rights underneath the Launched Grasp issued formally or informally by Defendants.”
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