Anjunabeats Issue Statement On Will.i.am Fiasco

The Will.i.am sample/plagiarism row seems one that’s set to rumble on for the foreseeable future after Above & Beyond’s label Anjunabeats  released an official press statement to address the various “inaccuracies” that Will had shared with the associated press.

For those of you who may not be yet initiated with the story we’ll briefly recap- back in 2011 Arty and Mat Zo released a popular collaborative effort entitled ‘Rebound’ on Anjunabeats which was subsequently sampled without permission for Will.i.am’s new single ‘Let’s Go’ with celebrity wife beater Chris Brown. Cue anger from both artists and Anjunabeats for the flagrant abuse of their copyright and Will.i.am seeking to diffuse the situation as a ‘misunderstanding’ and insisting that they were aware of his intention to make use of the work.

Anjunabeats have now responded with the following statement via their spokesman to dismiss Will’s recent claims saying:

 “As has been widely reported, a large section of ‘Rebound’ was sampled on Will.i.am’s track…and this took place without the permission of Anjunabeats or Arty & Mat Zo.

Although Arty (but not Mat Zo) was credited in the sleeve notes, this is not the same as obtaining permission. To present someone else’s work as your own, you need to seek permission, agree terms and file paperwork, which has not happened in this case.

We’ve remained silent on this issue until now but as a record label it is our obligation to protect our artists’ interests and we felt it was necessary to respond to some of the inaccuracies that have been reported following Will.i.am’s recent comments to Associated Press.”

Looks like it’s time to dust off the cheque book Will…