October 21, 2025
OneLibrary Will Change The DJ Tech Industry – For Good!
A common, shared music library across different DJ apps has been a dream of many DJs for a long time. Today, we come one step closer to that with the launc...
Thursday, December 10, 2015
The Weeknd Gets Sued Over ‘The Hills’
It’s been a week of ups and downs for The Weeknd. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the R&B singer was slapped with a lawsuit on Wednesday over his hit single, “The Hills.” The suit came just two days after the Toronto native received seven Grammy nominations.
Cutting Edge Music Limited, a film financier based in the UK, alleges that “The Hills” illegally samples Tom Raybould’s score for the 2013 sci-fi film, The Machine.
The defendants named in the case include The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye), producers Emmanuel “Million Dollar Mano” Nickerson and Carlo “Illangelo” Montagnese, co-writer Ahmad “Belly” Balshe, and music companies Universal, Warner Chappell, and Sony/ATV.
According to the complaint (read in full here), “On or about March 9, 2015, Defendant MANO sent Raybould a Twitter direct message stating ‘I sampled your music might make it 2 the weeknd next album. Huge fan of what u did 4 the machine movie!'”
“The Hills” was released in May as the second single from The Weeknd’s album, Beauty Behind the Madness. It has topped multiple charts and sold over two million units.
Compare the two songs below.
Related: Watch The Weeknd’s ‘In the Night’ Video
