A Brazilian judge has ordered the removal of Adele‘s song Million Years Ago from streaming platforms worldwide following a plagiarism lawsuit by a Brazilian composer.
The injunction, issued by Judge Victor Torres in Rio de Janeiro’s sixth commercial court, requires Adele’s record labels, Sony Music and Universal Music Group, to stop “immediately and globally, from using, reproducing, editing, distributing or commercializing the song Million Years Ago, by any modality, means, physical or digital support, streaming or sharing platform,” according to the judge’s preliminary injunction obtained by AFP.
The ruling also threatens the companies with an $8,000 fine for each act of non-compliance, AFP reported.
The case was brought by Brazilian composer Toninho Geraes in 2021. The composer claimed that Adele’s 2015 track plagiarized his samba classic Mulheres (Women), originally recorded by Brazilian singer Martinho da Bila in 1995. The composer is seeking lost royalties, $160,000 in moral damages, and a songwriting credit on Adele’s track.
“International producers and artists who… have Brazilian music ‘on their radar’ for possible parasitic use will think twice, given this decision.”
Fredimio Trotta, Lawyer
Million Years Ago is credited as being written by Adele and produced by Greg Kurstin. Part of Adele’s 25 album, it has racked up almost 224 million streams on Spotify and 22 million views on YouTube to date. Describing the song in 2015, Adele told Billboard: “It’s kind of a story about … I drove past Brockwell Park, which is a park in South London I used to live by. It’s where I spent a lot of my youth. It has quite monumental moments of my life that I’ve spent there, and I drove past it and I just literally burst into tears.”
Geraes’s lawyer, Fredimio Trotta, told AFP: “It is a landmark for Brazilian music, which… has often been copied to compose successful international hits… International producers and artists who… have Brazilian music ‘on their radar’ for possible parasitic use will think twice, given this decision,” the lawyer added.
The injunction against Adele orders a complete global halt to Million Years Ago’s use across all platforms, including streaming services, physical media, and broadcast channels. Trotta’s legal team plans to notify broadcasters and streaming services worldwide about the court’s decision.
This is not the first time Adele has faced plagiarism allegations for the song. In 2015, Turkish music fans claimed the track resembled a song by Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya called Acilara Tutunmak (Clinging to Pain), which was released in 1985. Kaya, who passed away in 2000, was not alive to pursue the claim, and his widow suggested such plagiarism was unlikely, AFP reported.
Neither Sony‘s Brazilian subsidiary nor Universal Music Brazil has publicly commented on the current lawsuit. The AFP said the music companies can still appeal the decision.
Meanwhile, AFP noted that Brazil is a signatory to the 1886 Berne Convention, which provides international copyright protections. This will likely strengthen the legal basis for claims of IP infringement.
For Adele, the development comes less than a month after she completed a 50-weekend, 100-show residency in Las Vegas, which began in November 2022.
The nature of the latest case against Adele underscores the potential global consequences of copyright disputes in the digital music era. Other artists who have recently faced copyright infringement claims include Dua Lipa over her megahit Levitating, Megan Thee Stallion over her Savage hit song, Childish Gambino over This Is America, and Ed Sheeran over Thinking Out Loud.
Music Business Worldwide