Peermusic and the Malcolm McLaren estate sue Sony Music Publishing over Lizzo interpolation
completemusicupdate.comPeermusic and the UK company that controls music created by the late Malcolm McLaren have sued Sony Music Publishing in a dispute over an interpolation in Lizzo track ‘About Damn Time’.In its chorus, Lizzo’s 2022 hit interpolates an element of ‘Hey!
DJ’, a 1984 release by The World’s Famous Supreme Team, which was co-written by McLaren. The copyright in that song was split between McLaren, producer Stephen Hague, and the two members of The World’s Famous Supreme Team, Larry Price and Ronald Larkins.According to a new lawsuit filed with the New York courts, reps for Lizzo approached Peermusic – which administrates McLaren’s catalogue – to clear his share of the copyright in relation to the interpolation.
It was ultimately decided that a third of the copyright in ‘About Damn Time’ would be allocated to the writers of ‘Hey! DJ’, with McLaren getting 25% of that.
So that’s 8.335%.So far so good. Except, Lizzo’s reps then subsequently told Peermusic that Sony Music Publishing was in fact claiming all of the monies due to the ‘Hey!
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