Renowned Ghanaian musician Obrafour has sued famous Canadian rapper Drake for $ 10,000,000 in New York for inserting a portion of his ‘Oye Ohene’ remix track in the ‘Calling My Name’ song without consent.
According to Obrafour, Drake’s action violates the copyright law that guides the music profession.
Portions of the plaintiff statement said: “Defendants released the Infringing Work on June 17, 2022, even though 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”.
The Ghanaian rapper indicated that Drake and other defendants greatly benefited from his work after the release of ‘Calling My Name’,
“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.”
He is also seeking an injunction requiring the “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.”
Meanwhile, other defendants in the suit include writers, producers, performers, record labels, entertainment companies, publishers, managers, administrators, and/or distributors of the infringing work.
Find the full writ below
Drake’s ‘Calling My Name’ was the 6th track released in June 2022 on the ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ album that got most fans interested.