Justin Timberlake and Will.I.Am have been accused of copyright infringement in a new lawsuit filed Wednesday at the U.S. District Court of New York.
New York music publishing company PK Music Performance claims that the duo’s 2006 song “Damn Girl” (which was featured on Timberlake’s album, “Futurezex/Lovesounds”) wrongly copies Perry Kibble’s “A New Day Is Here At Last.”
“A substantial amount of the music in ‘Damn Girl’ is copied from ‘A New Day Is Here At Last,” legal documents obtained by TheWrap state. “Specifically, a substantial part of the drum, conga drum, organ, bass guitar, electric quitter and saxophone parts in “Damn Girl,” were all copied from ‘A New Day Is Here At Last.’”
Former disco king Kibble died in 1999 and left the song’s copyright to his sister, Janis McQuinton, who is the principal of PK Music Performance.
According to the suit filed by Steven M. Lester of La Reddola, Lester & Associates LLP, Kibble was best known as part of the funk band A Taste of Honey, which won the 1978 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
“A New Day is Here At Last” was released by J.C. Davis in 1969, the same year Kibble registered his copyright in the musical composition, according to the complaint.
Listen to the songs below:
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
