$45K Debt: Davido Gets Court Ultimatum in the US
According to intel region The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has given Nigerian singer Davido (David Adeleke) time to legally appear before it to respond to charges of intellectual property theft within the next 21 days, according to legal documents seen by Peoples Gazette.
According to the lawsuit filed by four Nigerian artists-Martins Chukwuka Emmanuel, Abel Great Umaru, Kelvin Ayodele Campbell, and David Ovhioghena Umaru-Davido is said to have taken ‘Work’, their song from 2022 for use in creating his own work named
‘Strawberry on Ice’ in 2024.
The case goes further as Davido is sued with Emmerson Amidu Bockarie, an artist popularly known as Emmerson in the music fraternity and who featured in the song, and has been joined by Carlos Jenkins, Matthew Quinney, Marques Miles II, and the music agency Wynn Records which publishes and distributes `Strawberry on Ice’.
As per the legal filings, the problem originated in early January 2022 when the plaintiffs, in good faith, had presented Davido with a demo of ‘Work’ for prospective collaboration because they really wanted a breakthrough in the industry.
However, the plaintiffs further allege that instead of collaborating with them, he took the song to Emmerson without their consentand that, Later, he allegedly took and sampled the individual instrumental and vocal aspects of ‘Work’ to create ‘Strawberry on Ice .
In an endeavor to settle the matter amicably, some contacts were made between plaintiffs and Davido and some months later, were finally able to get through to him, whereupon the musician was said to have struck a deal for a one-time payment of $45,000 in settlement to be paid on March 14, 2025, per court documents.
In addition, Davido also agreed to give 40 percent of the royalties of the underlying composition of the song “Strawberry on Ice” to the plaintiffs and 20 percent on the sound recording of the song. But Davido breached this agreement because he promised to pay before March 24, as the parties have stated.
Their legal filing in court states that therein Davido and his co-defendants have infringed the intellectual property in “Work”.
They want rulings of damages to the amount of $150,000 and a transfer of 40% of the225a s compositional copyright for “Strawberry on Ice,” as well as 20% of its sound recording copyright.
The plaintiffs also urged the court to bar Davido and the other defendants from any future operations that may infringe on the group’s copyrights or perform actions in any way that can affect plaintiffs’ future copyrights.
Davido did not reply to a request for comment through The Gazette on Wednesday, while Wynne Records’ representative also abstained from making a comment.
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