Kanye West's settlement talks with EMI publishing falls apart, company asks court to reopen case
Kanye West's legal woes aren't ending any time soon. The case over a contract dispute with EMI Music Publishing is back on track as the company wrote to New York Federal judge to reopen the long battle with the singer since they could not agree on a settlement.
Earlier in 2019, Kanye attempted to end his contract with the company, due to a California law that restricts personal service contracts to seven years. Over the past few years, the law helped people to break long-term contracts. Kanye had signed with EMI in a 2003 deal that had been extended several times. The conditions of the deal were so stringent that it reportedly forbade him from retiring during its term.
Kanye sued EMI in California, claiming his contracts with the publishing company amounted to 'servitude'. However, EMI hit back saying that their contract listed with him had New York as a jurisdiction. According to new legal documents obtained by TMZ, the judge in the case has signed off on EMI's request to officially reopen the case. EMI, which has been seeing Kanye struggle in federal court over his publishing deal since earlier this year, back in September told the court, 'an agreement in principle' had been struck with Kanye to settle the case.
The court said that that the case would be reopened if their party gave good cause. The deadline to reopen the case was December 27, so a few days ago, EMI's lawyers wrote a letter to the judge saying that "unfortunately the parties have been unable to finalize the terms of the settlement agreement."
As of now, neither West or his attorneys have issued a response to EMI's letter.
This isn't the only legal tussle Kanye is involved in. He is also facing copyright infringement suit over a sample that he used in his 2016 song 'Ultralight beam'.