Dec 10, 2015 Article Source: Pitchfork - http://pitchfork.com/news/62473-the-weeknd-sued-over-the-hills/ By Jeremy Gordon on December 9, 2015 at 4:02 p.m. EST Lawsuit alleges the song illegally samples 2013 film The Machine The Weeknd has been hit with a lawsuit for copyright infringement, as The Hollywood Reporter reports. The suit is related to his song "The Hills", from this year's Beauty Behind the Madness. Cutting Edge Music Limited alleges that Abel Tesfaye and his producers illegally sampled the score from the 2013 sci fi film The Machine. The filing can be read here. The lawsuit centers on an alleged direct message sent over Twitter to Tom Raybould, who scored The Machine, by Emmanuel "Million Dollar Mano" Nickerson, a producer on "The Hills". The plaintiff claims that the message said, "I sampled your music might make it 2 the weeknd next album. Huge fan of what u did 4 the machine movie!" The message was allegedly sent around March 9 of this year. "The Hills" was released on May 27. The plaintiffs seek damages and an injunction. Tesfaye, Nickerson, producer Carlo "Illangelo" Montagnese, co-writer Ahmad "Belly" Balshe, Universal Music Group, and Republic Records are some of the parties named as defendants in the suit, as well as the involved music publishing companies.
Dec 10, 2015 Finally, a thread where I can use this But for real, I kinda giggled at this. This isn't the first time Weeknd's had this complaint but this is the first time he's getting sued for it. I forgot which song, but a band called Portishead said he rips them off all the time...or just on that one song....don't remember. Legend says he asked them, they said no and he was like f--- you and changed the song to where it can be a loophole for him to use it.
Dec 10, 2015 I mean, I can sort of see what was sampled if I really strain myself and imagine how they worked that into the hills, but lmao at this being that big of a deal. You can't even really tell knowing it, and probably couldn't at all if you didn't know.
Dec 10, 2015 ....d--- it took far too long for the part I can hear in The Hills to come up. So it seems to me he used that low treble part
Dec 10, 2015 That synth at 26:48 is present through a lot of The Hills starting at 8 seconds, again at 24 seconds, etc.
Dec 10, 2015 Yeah I went to listen to it side by side I'm with Cy on this I guess artists really need to dot their i and cross their t's when sampling s---. Him and Pharell needs to take notes from Ye
