Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign are being sued by two producers who claim the duo’s song Vultures uses their music without a license.
The copyright infringement lawsuit was filed in federal court in Los Angeles on November 6 by Jae Deal (real name Jaraed Deal) and Marlon Barrow, who is known professionally as Marlonwiththeglasses.
It accuses the defendants of the “knowing, continuous, and blatant unauthorized use” of a 2018 recording the pair co-own.
Ye’s companies Yeezy Record Label LLC and Yeezy LLC are also named as defendants, as is distributor Create Music Group.
The 24-page complaint, obtained by MBW, can be read in full here.
According to the lawsuit, Deal and Barrow completed the recording, titled Joint 2, in or around November 2018.
They each own 50% of the recording, its underlying composition, and five separately mixed stems for its Rhodes, flutes, piano, brass, and strings parts, the complaint states.
It says Barrow and Ty Dolla $ign (real name Tyrone William Griffin, Jr.) have “a close personal and professional relationship spanning decades.”
“During a phone call between Barrow and Griffin, Griffin heard the Sampled Works playing in the background on Barrow’s end of the call,” the complaint states.
Ty Dolla $ign then asked to visit Barrow’s studio, and later asked for a copy of the music “to potentially use on his forthcoming album,” according to the lawsuit.
The complaint states: “Barrow provided Griffin with only an MP3 version of the Sampled Works via text message, with the understanding, consistent with industry practice, that higher-quality versions and stems would be provided only upon execution of a written agreement governing the material terms and conditions of the use by the relevant parties involved.”
No such agreement was ever negotiated or signed, the producers say, and Barrow turned down Ty Dolla $ign’s later requests for the stems.
The producers believe Ty Dolla $ign then shared the MP3 with Ye, who is named in the filing as Kanye Omari West.
Two versions of Vultures were released on or around November 18, 2023, according to the complaint – one featuring Bump J and Lil Durk, the other featuring Bump J alone.
“Barrow was accorded a producer credit, but received no compensation whatsoever,” the complaint states. “Deal was never accorded a producer credit nor paid any compensation whatsoever.”
The producers say they learned of the release after the fact, and that Deal began trying to have the tracks taken down via Create Music Group, YouTube, and Spotify from around December 15, 2023.
Around January 11, 2024, producer 88-Keys – described in the complaint as Yeezy’s Head of Music – contacted the pair, who say they told him they owned the music and had not authorized its use.
Weeks later, the music appeared on the Vultures Pack EP, released through Yeezy on or around February 6, 2024, with a third version titled Vultures (Havoc Version).
Four days later, Vultures became the title track of Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s joint album Vultures 1, which went on to top the Billboard 200.
In October 2024, the complaint states, Yeezy’s then-attorney emailed Deal’s then-attorney with “a buy-out settlement offer.”
Deal rejected it, citing the “known value” of the music and the offer’s failure to address the alleged willful infringement and lack of credit, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint does not state how much Yeezy offered.
The producers also claim that when the defendants registered the Vultures works with the US Copyright Office on July 9, 2025, they left Deal off as an author and falsely stated that Barrow had transferred his rights by contract.
The lawsuit ties Vultures to revenue from Yeezy merchandise and ticketed listening events, not just streams.
The complaint says Ye has stated publicly that a Vultures merchandise storefront on yeezy.com sold more than USD $19.3 million of goods between December 12, 2023 – when only the singles had been released – and February 12, 2024.
Ye did post a $19.3 million sales figure on Instagram in February 2024. At the time, however, it was widely reported as yeezy.com’s sales in roughly the 24 hours after his Super Bowl ad, across products including the Yeezy Pod shoe and Vultures T-shirts, rather than two months of Vultures merchandise sales.
The complaint also alleges that Vultures merchandise has grossed more than $100 million in total.
It also claims the listening parties Ye and Ty Dolla $ign staged between December 2023 and around March 2024 grossed more than $12 million in ticket sales, excluding their fees for headlining Rolling Loud California.
At those events, the filing states, “Defendants West and Griffin merely hit play on one or more Infringing Works for an audience of individuals who had purchased tickets to attend.”
Deal and Barrow argue that because the songs and the merchandise share a name, they are “parts of an indivisible whole in the eyes of the public.”
The Vultures tracks have collectively generated more than 130 million Spotify streams, the complaint claims.
Deal and Barrow are seeking actual damages and the defendants’ profits from the alleged infringement, with the amount to be determined at trial. They are also seeking attorneys’ fees and costs.
As an alternative, they are asking for the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 “for each act of willful infringement” of both the recording and the composition. The complaint does not specify a total figure.
US copyright law sets statutory damages per work infringed, rather than per release. The complaint argues that the recording and the composition are two separate works and that the defendants are jointly and severally liable.
On that basis, the theoretical maximum would be $300,000.
There is a complication. According to the complaint, the producers’ copyright registration for Joint 2 took effect on January 11, 2024 – nearly two months after the Vultures singles were released, and before Deal released the recording himself in March 2024.
US law generally bars both statutory damages and attorneys’ fees where infringement of an unpublished work began before the work was registered. Under Ninth Circuit precedent, which binds the Los Angeles court, an ongoing series of infringements of the same kind is treated as beginning with the first.
The complaint argues that each later release of Vultures, carrying its own ISRC, was “a new and additional copyright infringement, rather than a continuing infringement.”
Either way, the larger exposure may lie in profits: if a court accepts the link the producers draw between Vultures and Yeezy‘s merchandise and ticket revenue, the sums at issue could extend beyond streaming income.
They are also asking the court to order Ye, Ty Dolla $ign, and the other defendants to stop distributing, performing, and selling the recordings, and to have all copies, masters, stems, and session files containing their music impounded or destroyed.
If granted, that would take the title track of a Billboard 200 No. 1 album off streaming services.
“This action is not only about unpaid licensing fees and the lack of appropriate credit, but also about the essential right of any artist to determine when, how, and by whom their creative work is used,” the complaint filed by Deal and Barrow states. “It concerns protecting artistic integrity, enforcing intellectual property rights, and preventing commercial exploitation by those who knowingly use a work without securing proper authorization.”
The lawsuit is the latest dispute over music used by Ye and Ty Dolla $ign on their Vultures projects.
In February 2024, Donna Summer‘s estate sued the pair over the Vultures 1 track Good (Don’t Die), alleging it used Summer’s 1977 song I Feel Love without permission.
That case settled in June 2024. The estate’s lawyer said that, under the settlement, the pair agreed not to distribute or otherwise use Good (Don’t Die).
In November 2024, Memphis rappers Criminal Manne and DJ Squeeky, along with the estate of Kilo G, sued Ye, Ty Dolla $ign, Yeezy Record Label, Warner Chappell Music, and Create Music Group over alleged unlicensed samples on the Vultures 1 track Fuk Sumn.
Ty Dolla $ign and Create Music Group reached a settlement in principle with those plaintiffs in July 2025, according to a court filing.
Ye reached his own settlement in principle with them in March 2026, but no final agreement had been filed by the time the court set a new litigation schedule in October.
In March 2025, German singer-songwriter Alice Merton sued Ye over Gun to My Head, a track featuring Ty Dolla $ign and Kid Cudi that appeared on the digital deluxe edition of Vultures 2. She alleges the track samples her 2022 song Blindside, and that it was released after she refused to clear the sample.
Merton‘s case is ongoing.
In February 2026, alternative R&B artist Swsh and UK indie label Future Bounce sued Ye, Ty Dolla $ign, Yeezy Record Label, and distributor Label Engine in the same Los Angeles court, alleging that the Vultures 2 track 530 used Swsh’s 2018 song Break the Fall without a license.
In May 2026, in a separate case, a Los Angeles jury found Ye liable for copyright infringement over a sample used in an early version of his song Hurricane, which he played at a 2021 Donda listening event.
The jury awarded $438,558 in damages against Ye and three of his companies.
In that case, the plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the event earned Ye $5.6 million across tickets, merchandise, and an Apple Music livestream deal.
MBW has contacted representatives for Ye and Ty Dolla $ign for comment.Music Business Worldwide
