U.S. Court Gives Davido 21 Days to Respond to Copyright Lawsuit Over Alleged Song Theft
Popular singer, David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, has been summoned by a United States federal court to appear in New York within 21 days to respond to allegations of intellectual property theft and breach of settlement, following a lawsuit filed by four Nigerian artists.
According to the Lawsuit, filed at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 4, involves four Nigerian artistes - Martins Chukwuka Emmanuel, Abel Great Umaru, Kelvin Ayodele Campbell, and David Ovhioghena Umaru - who accused Davido of allegedly stealing their 2022 song titles 'Work' to create and release his track 'Strawberry on Ice' in 2024.
The legal filings claimed that the plaintiffs shared the demo of ‘Work’ with Davido in January 2022, in hopes of collaborating with Davido. Instead, Davido allegedly took the song without permission to recreate the track, incorporating both sounds and vocals from the original demo and collaborated with Sierra Leone singer Emerson (Emmerson Amidu Bockarie) as well as Carlos Jenkins, Matthew Quinney, Marques Miles II, and Wynn Records, which published and distributed the DISPUTED song.
In an attempt to privately resolve the matter out of court, the plaintiffs claimed to have reached out to Davido and agreed to settle on March 14, 2025. The agreement stipulated that Davido would pay $45,000 and 40% of the compositional royalties and 20% of the sound recording royalties for ‘Strawberry on Ice’ but Davido allegedly failed to honor the agreement by the March 24 deadline.
As a result, the plaintiffs are now demanding $150,000 in damages asking the court to declare that their intellectual property rights over ‘Work’ were infringed upon and a court-ordered transfer of 40% of the compositional copyright and 20% of the sound recording copyright of ‘Strawberry on Ice’ to them.
They are also asking the court to bar Davido and his collaborators from further infringements in the future.
Davido has yet to publicly respond to the lawsuit.
Wynn Records also declined to comment when contacted by Peoples Gazette.
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