Kanye West was ordered to pay more than $52,000 in legal fees as the judge ruled that his team was in trouble in a copyright lawsuit on two “Donda” tracks.
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Kanye West just suffered a legal blow in Los Angeles when a federal judge ordered him and his company to pay $52,015 in attorney fees for copyright disputes with his album Donda.
The ruling upheld an earlier decision requiring teams in the West to pay legal fees after refusing to collaborate during the stages of litigation filed by Artist Tax Advocate LLC.
The group claims that the West illegally used copyrighted material created by DJ Khalil, with three other musicians on two tracks “Moon” and “Hurricane” – from his 2021 album Donda (unlicensed).
Kanye West calls them songwriters and producers, but he has never received approval to use music, which they say generates at least $15 million in revenue.
West and his legal team opposed all 65 attempts to obtain key documents they obtained and did not make any records at all. This led them to ask the court to intervene.
The judge agreed with DJ Khalil and his crew to order Kanye West’s company to hand over the required materials and pay legal fees for forcing the result.
After reviewing the billing records, the magistrate set the amount to over $52,000.
West’s lawyer backed off, calling the fee “too high” and believed the songwriter used too many senior lawyers at a high rate. They asked the court to reduce the ruling to $15,000.
The judge did not convince and said the number of objections from the Western team proved the time spent by the plaintiff’s attorney.
The fee order is part of a wider lawsuit that remains active in federal courts. The case filed in 2023, which can determine whether West and his company are responsible for copyright infringement related to the two tracks.
