Call Out My Name

Rolling Stone reports The Weeknd has settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against him over his 2018 single “Call On Out My Name.” The lawsuit was filed in September 2021 by the electro duo Epikker, who claimed that “Call Out My Name” was significantly similar to their unreleased song “Vibeking.”

According to Billboard, Epikker — which consists of Suniel Fox and Henry Strange — claimed to have evidence that The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) had heard the song. Email correspondence between Epikker and Tesfaye’s “playback engineer” appeared to confirm that he’d “listened to and liked” the original song.

In a statement filed with the Los Angeles court on Friday, the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote, “The parties have reached a settlement in principle of this action. Because the parties are still in the process of formalizing, executing, and consummating that settlement, Plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court take all dates off calendar and set a date in 30 days for the parties to file a joint status report if the case has not already been dismissed.”

This isn’t the first time The Weeknd was sued by other songwriters for allegedly copying their work. In 2019, he was sued over his Starboy track “A Lonely Night” while in 2020, the band Yeasayer sued both The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar over their Black Panther song “Pray For Me.” However, that suit was dropped a month later. The Weeknd is currently one of the celebrities named in a class-action suit over the promotion of NFTs.

The Weeknd has some new legal troubles on his hands. The singer has been accused of plagiarism by an electro-house duo in a new lawsuit. Epikker’s Suniel Fox and Henry Strange claim the singer’s 2018 track, “Call Out My Name,” off his EP My Dear Melancholy, ripped off their 2017 song “Vibeking.” The lawsuit also takes aim at the song’s co-writers Frank Dukes and Nicolas Jaar, their publishers, and Universal Music Group.

In court documents, Fox and Strange claim that “Vibeking” was created in April 2015 and published “in or around April or May 2017.” The duo adds that they sent the song to PNDA, one of The Weeknd’s engineers, with the hope that he would hear the song. They add that the track was one of many songs they sent to him for consideration.

On April 29, 2015 PNDA allegedly responded to one of the writers and told them that the song is “fiiiire” in emails that contained the track. Later, on May 15 of that year, PNDA added that The Weeknd heard the song and said that “it’s fire.”

PNDA then responded to Strange saying, “Just gonna tell [The Weeknd] that our production team wrote the track. Cool? Or u have another idea? Just don’t wanna say ‘hey, [Strange] wrote this’ when he doesn’t know u.” Strange replied, “[The Weeknd] knows me. Say both. [Strange] with Ponytail you met on Drake tour. Who is part of our production team.”

Despite this, the “Vibeking” writers did not receive a license or agreement from The Weeknd’s team to use the song for “Call Out My Name.” Chris Ghazarian, the lawyer representing the “Vibeking” writers, spoke on behalf of them in regards to the lawsuit.

“The Weeknd is no stranger to accusations of infringement, and this one is probably the most egregious case to date,” he said. “Epikker (Suniel and Henry) works with many artists in the industry, and was profoundly disappointed when The Weeknd and his team copied ‘Vibeking,’ an original Epikker song that was shared with them years ago in good faith.” He added, “I look forward to working with Doniger Burroughs to secure reasonable compensation and credit for Epikker in connection with ‘Call Out My Name.’”