The Weeknd Hit With Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Over ‘The Hills’

The Weeknd's Beauty Behind the Madness may be one song short if he loses a lawsuit filed against him for "The Hills." British music production company, Cutting Edge Music, is claiming that the singer's Grammy-nominated song is a direct copy of Tom Raybould’s track “Revolution” from the 2014 movie The Machine.

According to the lawsuit, the producer of "The Hills," Million Dollar Mano, reached out to Raybould before the song was on the album to express his fandom and let him know that he was sampling the song. “I sampled your music might make it 2 the weeknd next album. Huge fan of what u did 4 the machine movie!" read the direct message between the two, according to the lawsuit.

Now, Raybould is suing for "unspecified damages," according to Variety, as well as a ban for "further distribution of the song and album until Cutting Edge Music is given proper credit." The suers also want the current song version removed from the album.

According to the suit, the similarities lie in the "synthesizer bass-lines." It also says that the two songs have "almost identical idiosyncratic sounds at the same register" while "using the same pitch sequence, melodic phase structure and rhythmic durations."

Attorneys for the Weeknd had no comment on the matter.

"The Hills" has definitely seen some massive success as it debuted at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and amassed 5.2 million domestic streams. The Weeknd's Beauty Behind the Madness album also saw success as it premiered at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with more than 300,000 albums sold in its first week of release.

Hopefully, the two parties can come to an agreement so fans can continue to listen to and enjoy the song. Stay tuned.