Universal Music Group Sued Over Side to Side Copyright Infringement

There might not be a single popular song that hasn’t been hit with at least one copyright infringement claim. This time, a Texas man is claiming that Ariana Grande’s single “Side to Side” is a rip-off of his original music and is suing her record label UMG for royalties, according to TMZ reports.

The producer in question, Christopher O’Connor, believes a record executive at UMG discovered his song “J5 (T6)” and then got Grande and Nicki Minaj to “copy it” and lay their vocals down. Despite it only being uploaded to Soundcloud two months ago, O’Connor says the song was made before Ariana’s single.

O’Connor also told TMZ he had already reached out to UMG about the alleged copyright violation; the label told him to send in a demo to be assessed. The label did not feel as though any part of O’Connor’s song was re-purposed for Ariana’s single. The producer also believes the label has done the same with some of his other music as well, using them to create songs for artists like Mike Shinoda and Taylor Swift.

– Excerpt from an article by Sajae Elder from Complex. See the full article here.