Milk & Honey founder Lucas Keller and two-time Grammy-winning producer Oak Felder have sued the AI copyright-detection company SoundPatrol and its co-founder and CEO Walter De Brouwer, alleging they helped develop its copyright-detection software and were never paid for it.
SoundPatrol is the firm that struck what it called a “first-of-a-kind collaboration” with Universal Music Group and Sony Music in September 2025 to detect copyright infringement in AI-generated music.
The complaint, filed on Tuesday (July 28) in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles, and reviewed by MBW, names De Brouwer, SoundPatrol (styled in the filing as Sound Patrol, Inc.), and its predecessor company Snowcrash, Inc.
The suit brings five causes of action against the De Brouwers and their companies, including “Fraudulent Inducement” and “Breach of the Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing,” and demands a jury trial.
Also named as a defendant is Walter’s wife, Samia De Brouwer.
The complaint opens by framing the case as one of “wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneurs taking advantage of the hard work, talent, and good nature of a successful Black artist for their own personal gain,” a reference to Felder.
The two sides had been close for years, the complaint says, with Keller introducing the De Brouwers to the music industry and arranging for Felder to speak at a TED conference the couple hosted.
According to the complaint, the idea took shape in 2023, when Keller, Felder, and the De Brouwers discussed building software to create music using AI.
Keller, whose firm Milk & Honey represents more than 70 songwriters and producers, raised concerns that such a tool could reproduce chords it had “learned” from copyrighted songs, the filing says.
To address that, Keller and Felder proposed a “copyright checker” that would flag any part of a track containing chords similar to a copyrighted piece of music, the complaint states.
Under what the complaint calls the “Software Agreement,” Snowcrash agreed to pay the pair in stock options in exchange for developing the software, which it says was fully functional by mid-2024.
The complaint reads that: “They promised Felder and Keller stock options in their company, Snowcrash, in exchange for development of the software. Men of their word, Felder and Keller upheld their end of the bargain, and developed the software. The De Brouwers, on the other hand, took one bad faith step after another.”
On June 7, 2024, Snowcrash’s board granted Keller (through his company Chateaubriand Ventures) and Felder options over 345,000 shares each, at an exercise price of USD $0.34, according to the filing.
The complaint alleges that in April or May 2024, the pair were “coerced” into assigning the software’s patent to Snowcrash for no consideration.
Walter De Brouwer then incorporated a new company, Sound Patrol, on November 12, 2024, and on February 7, 2025 it acquired substantially all of Snowcrash’s assets, including the patent, the complaint says.
“Men of their word, Felder and Keller upheld their end of the bargain, and developed the software.”
Complaint against SoundPatrol
De Brouwer signed that asset-purchase agreement as both “President of Sound Patrol” and “Chief Executive Officer of Snowcrash,” according to the complaint, which describes the deal as “As ‘inside’ as a transaction can possibly be.”
The transfer left Keller and Felder’s Snowcrash options worthless, the plaintiffs allege, saying the De Brouwers “absconded with the Software and drove the value of Felder and Keller’s stock options six feet under.”
The complaint claims Sound Patrol went on to market the software and land “a highly lucrative licensing deal with Universal Music Group and Sony Music,” without paying Keller or Felder anything.
The September 2025 arrangement was announced publicly as a collaboration rather than a licensing deal, with the two majors saying they would use SoundPatrol’s “neural fingerprinting” technology to identify copyrighted music inside AI tracks, and no financial terms were disclosed.
When that deal was announced, MBW reported that Felder and Keller were “two of the co-founding partners” in SoundPatrol and, at that point, still held equity in the business.
The lawsuit tells a different story, alleging that Keller and Felder were left with nothing and that Sound Patrol “contends that it owes no obligations whatsoever” to them.
Felder’s production credits include Alicia Keys’ Girl on Fire, Rihanna’s Unapologetic, and Demi Lovato’s Sorry Not Sorry, and he is managed by Milk & Honey.
Walter De Brouwer, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who previously led health-technology firms doc.ai and Scanadu, co-founded SoundPatrol with Michael Ovitz, the co-founder of talent agency Creative Artists Agency.
Snowcrash launched in March 2022 as an NFT platform backed by Universal and Sony, co-founded by De Brouwer; filmmaker Jesse Dylan, Bob Dylan’s son; and Jeff Rosen, the longtime president of the Bob Dylan Music Company.
In a June 2026 op-ed for MBW, De Brouwer argued for a “transformation royalty” that would route a micro-payment to an artist each time an AI model generates something derived from their voice, style, or catalog.
Keller, Felder, and Chateaubriand Ventures are seeking more than $5 million in damages, punitive damages, rescission of the patent assignment, and a declaration that their options are enforceable against Sound Patrol.
SoundPatrol has not yet responded to a request for comment.Music Business Worldwide