Travis Scott Sued For Copyright Infringement Over “Highest In The Room”

Travis Scott

Travis Scott Sued For Copyright Infringement Over “Highest In The Room”

Although a rep for Travis Scott says this is nothing more than a frivolous dispute between producers and has nothing to do with Travis directly, three songwriters Olivier Bassil, Benjamin Lasnier and Lukas Benjamin Leth are reportedly suing Travis Scott and his team of producers.  According to reports, the lawsuit is over Travis Scott’s song “Highest In The Room” that debuted No. 1 on the Hot 100 last October.  The three songwriters allege that the song ripped off their “distinctive guitar melody.”

The complaint says that Travis Scott and his team of producers,

“pretended to be interested in a collaboration, only to “intentionally [break] the rules by exploiting plaintiffs work without consent or a license, masquerading as if plaintiff’s music is their own.”

Travis Scott’s song “Highest In the Room,” became his second No. 1 single and his first to debut on the billboard chart.  The song earned him 59 million U.S. streams and 51,000 digital song sales in the week ending Oct. 10, and spent 22 weeks on the Hot 100.

The 37-page complaint alleges:

“They created a song titled “Cartier” with a distinct guitar melody in 2019. Four days after they created the song, Lasier posted a link to the song containing the original guitar melody in a public online discussion group for music producers. He later sent their original work to hip-hop artist Desiigner and at least 100 producers and artists, including Lepr, hoping they would be interested in licensing the work or in future collaborations.”

The lawsuit adds,

“After also posting the song to Instagram, Lasnier says he began corresponding with Lepr, sending him beats hoping he would license them. Lasnier also sent the work to Yildirim and Frascona. When “Highest in the Room” was released, Bassil, Lasnier and Leth found the guitar melody of the song substantially similar to “Cartier.””

Travis Scott

The three songwriters believe their melody was ripped off for Travis Scott’s hit record.

“There is no doubt that Defendants’ ‘Highest in the Room’ was modeled after and copied original, prominent and qualitatively and quantitatively important parts of Plaintiff’s ‘Cartier,” the complaint states.

Richard Busch, the attorney for the three songwriters, tells Billboard,

“Everything we basically have to say is set forth in the Complaint. I will just add that our clients are very successful songwriters/producers who, as set forth in the Complaint, and is common practice, corresponded with the defendant writers with an eye toward licensing their work through a collaboration. They never expected that this would end up in a lawsuit but felt they had no choice but to take this action under these circumstances.”

The three songwriters are asking a judge for Travis Scott and his team to admit to stealing their melody, damages and their share of the royalties for “Highest in the Room,” which they predict is somewhere around $20 million.

What are your thoughts on Travis Scott’s Lew lawsuit? Let us know in the comments!