We’re just a week into 2025, and the first blockbuster copyright infringement lawsuit of the year has already been filed in a New York court.
According to legal documents obtained by MBW, Travis Scott, SZA and Future are being sued by RocNation-signed artist Victory Boyd, and her publishing company Songs of Glory, for allegedly ripping off her song Like The Way It Sounds to create their 2023 hit, Telekinesis.
Telekinesis has been streamed over 413 million times on Spotify alone. It was released as part of Scott’s smash hit, US No.1album, Utopia (Cactus Jack/Epic Records/ Sony Music).
Cactus Jack, Epic Records and Sony Music Entertainment are also named in the lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday (January 8). As you’ll read below, Scott’s brand partner, luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet (AP), is also named as a defendant.
In the complaint, Boyd claims that she “wrote the lyrics, then completed and published a demo” entitled “Like the Way it Sounds” in November 2019 and then shared a recording of the song with Kanye West via a voice note.
According to Boyd’s lawsuit, “upon information and belief,” Kanye West planned to release a song entitled Future Bounce, renaming it twice as Future Sounds and then Ultrasounds. All versions of these renamed songs were alleged to be based on Boyd’s work.
But in 2021, when Kanye West released his album, Donda, he did not release any one of those different versions of the song using Boyd’s original work, which the court filing notes, “is copyrighted and registered with the Library of Congress under registration number SR 986-420.1”
What happened next was that Kanye West is purported to have played the song for Travis Scott. Boyd claims that she left her song, Like The Way It Sounds, “in a studio in Wyoming”, which Scott subsequently gained access to “and began creating the Infringing Work off of the Original Work”.
Scott is then alleged to have shared Boyd’s song with Sza and Future and “requested that they collaborate in creating” [Telekinesis] “by copying” the original work which they are claimed to have agreed to in May 2023.
Telekinesis was commercially released on July 28, 2023.
According to the lawsuit: “Upon information and belief, in 2023 Scott, Sza, Future and all Defendants intentionally and willfully copied Plaintiffs’ Original Work, specifically Plaintiff’s Lyrics, when they commercially released the Infringing Work.”
The credits information page for Telekinesis on Spotify, which you can see below, lists Victory Boyd and Kanye West (aka Ye) among the co-writers on the track. West is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, but a number of co-writers listed below are. You can read the lawsuit in full here.
Boyd claims in the lawsuit that “when the Defendants commercially released the Infringing Work” aka Telekinesis, they “credited [Boyd] as a co-writer in the meta-data provided to digital streaming platforms” but that she was “unaware” that her song had been “copied and commercially released”.
Boyd added in the lawsuit that she had actually “planned to finish working on her Original Work and commercially release it through her recording agreement with RocNation.”
Elsewhere in the lawsuit, Boyd claims that in November 2023, watchmaker AP, “aware that the Infringing Work was a copy of the Original Work”, contacted her to obtain permission to commercially exploit” Telekinesis as part of an ad campaign.
Boyd claims that she had “no communication from any of the other Defendants on an agreement and with no permission to use” the Original Work, she “declined to give permission to AP”.
On December 1, 2023, Boyd explains, her publishing administrator, Kobalt Publishing, under Boyd’s direction, “declined to give AP permission” because Scott et al were allegedly “never granted permission” to use her song to create theirs in the first place.
On December 1, 2023, a rep for Boyd allegedly “gave all Defendants notice that [Boyd] objected to the planned broadcast” of Telekinesis.
On December 4, 2023, the Defendants and AP partnered to publish and commercially release an advertising campaign using the alleged infringing work in spite of Boyd’s objection.
“Plaintiff will incur substantial and irreparable injury if Defendants’ are allowed to continue their infringement of the Original Work pending the resolution of this action.”
Lawsuit filed by Victory Boyd
The lawsuit claims that Scott’s Telekinesis “copies varies elements” of Boyd’s song Like The Way It Sounds, “including but not limited to the lyrics”.
Those original lyrics, which appear in Telekinesis according to the lawsuit, are as follows: “I can see the future is looking like we level through the sky, I can’t wait to live in glory in eternal lasting life, won’t you take the wheel and I recline and I sit still- might as well turn up now, He gone pop up unannounced, hear the trumpets, do you like the way it sounds?”
According to the complaint: “The substantial, salient and original aspects” of Boyd’s Like The Way It Sounds “are repeated in the Infringing Work [Telekinesis] and are the predominant, prominent and the only recognizable characteristic of the Infringing Work”.
Lawyers for Boyd also argue in the lawsuit that “the substantial, salient and original aspects of Boyd’s song Like The Way It Sounds Original “are not in dispute, as Defendants have recently attempted to credit Plaintiff as an 8% writing contributor to the Infringing Work [Telekinesis].
The lawsuit continues: “As a result, every copy of each of the various versions of the Infringing Work infringe the Original Work, as do any downloads, streams or music videos of Telekinesis.”
Boyd’s lawsuit also claims that “every time Scott, Sza or Future performed or performs Telekenesis in concert, Defendants have infringed the copyright of Plaintiff’s Original Work”.
It adds: “To date, each of the Defendants reproduced, distributed, publicly performed, and/or authorized the reproduction, distribution and public performance of the infringing composition and sound recording Telekinesis and each of the Defendants continues to infringe Plaintiff’s Original Work.”
Boyd is requesting a Jury trial and her lawyers argue that she is “entitled to a preliminary and permanent injunction pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 502 enjoining and restraining Defendants from further infringement or broadcast of Plaintiff’s copyrighted Original Work.”
According to the complaint, Boyd “will incur substantial and irreparable injury if Defendants’ are allowed to continue their infringement of the Original Work pending the resolution of this action.”Music Business Worldwide