The Juice WRLD Yellowcard case has been put on hold following the death of the Jarad A. Higgins.
Yellowcard a pop punk band, claimed that their song ‘Holly Wood Died’ which was released in 2006, was infringed by the song ‘Lucid Dreams’ was wilfully copyrighted by the artist and producers. They did not have neither the license nor consent of the Artist. Therefore Infringing the work and the Sound Recording.
The lawsuit alleged that the infringing song is not only substantially similar to that of theirs, but almost identical and would hold all the people who worked on the song jointly liable for violating section 106 of the Copyright Act. This act denotes the exclusive rights of the copyright owner and the ability to lease their work. This is the core principle of copyright discussing the rights of owner.
The application goes on to state how the song was created, how they copied two songs being ‘Shape of My Heart” by Sting and their song. As well as this they state that Sting’s work was licensed and that their work was wilfully infringed. Lucid Dreams appeared on Billboard top 100 for 46 weeks and peaked at No 2.
They Believe that the artist had access to the song as Juice WRLD admitted himself that he was a fan and studied pop punk music. He also stated that he educated himself on Emo Pop Rock music. Which is in the same genre Yellowcard is in. Therefore, he has been exposed to the song and wilfully infringed their work.
On the 2nd of December 2019 Jarad A. Higgins (Juice WRLD) died from an overdose. It is now impossible to cross examine Juice WRLD, so now Yellowcard can not find out wether had been exposed to the song and create a case of wilful copyright infringement. However, he isn’t the only defendant. As a result of this death this case has now been put on hold.
Music copyright is a complicated area. This is a result of most songs having an element that has been taken from another person’s work. It is more likely now because some chord patterns are generic and overused. Another factor is the sheer amount of music in the world. There are so many songs nowadays, creating a high likelihood that there is one song out there which is similar in nature to your song. The key element to avoid any unnecessary litigation is if you are wilfully infringing someone’s work ask for permission to license the work and then there would be no infringement case and both parties will be happy. If you do license the work of someone else, you would either have to pay an upfront sum or a percentage of the royalties that you own or maybe even both.
Written By Owen White Third Year Law Student at Solent University.
