Canadian rapper Aubrey Drake Graham popularly known as Drake has been sued by Ghanaian legendary rapper, Michael Elliot Kwabena Okyere Darko also known as Obrafour in a 10-million-dollar copyright infringement case.
Reports indicate that the Canadian rapper had sampled the Ghanaian musician’s 2003 remix of ‘Oye Ohene’ on his song ‘Calling My Name’ off the Honestly Nevermind album.
This according to reports compelled Obrafour to file a case in a New York court about the copyright infringement and that he [Obrafour] though was consented but didn’t permit the Canadian rapper Drake in that regard.
Documents presented by Obrafour and his legal team at the New York court highlighted some details regarding the infringement.
The document further mentioned that he [Obrafour] never gave the permission to the Canadian rapper to proceed with his request.
“Defendants released the Infringing Work on June 17, 2022, despite the fact that an agent of one or more Defendants had previously contacted Obrafour seeking to obtain Obrafour’s permission for the use of the Copyrighted Work in the Infringing Work.”
“Obrafour never granted Defendants permission to use the Copyrighted Work and the Infringing work was released mere days later,” parts of the document read.
“To date, over the mere 304 days that have elapsed since the Infringing Work was released, the Infringing Work has already been streamed over 4.1 million times on YouTube, streamed over 47,442,160 times on Spotify, and streamed tens of millions of times on Apple Music.”
“In addition to generating enormous sums of global streams and sales across numerous platforms, the Infringing Work has also been exploited by the Defendants via other means, including live performance.”
Among others, Obrafour is seeking damages in an amount not less than $10,000,000.
Obrafour has also mentioned that Drake has immensely benefited from big online sales and shops including Apple Music, Youtube, and Spotify.
He is also seeking an injunction requiring the stoppage of the infringement work.
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“Defendants and their agents, employees, officers, attorneys, successors, licensees, partners, and assigns, and all persons acting in concert or participation with each or any one of them, to cease directly and indirectly infringing, and causing, enabling, facilitating, encouraging, promoting, inducing, and/or participating in the infringement of any of Obrafour’s rights protected by the Copyright Act.”
Twitter users have reacted to the trending story with varying comments from fans and many music maniacs in the music fraternity.
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