Sony Music-Owned Label Accused of Disregarding Indie Rights in UK Lawsuit Over Jay Sean Remix

LONDON — A U.K. indie label is suing Sony Music-owned Ministry of Sound Recordings over a remix of a song by R&B artist Jay Sean that became a global viral hit on TikTok a decade after its original release.

According to legal papers filed in the London High Court, which have been viewed by Billboard, 2Point9 Records is suing Ministry of Sound for copyright infringement of Sean’s “Ride It” – a Top 20 single in the United Kingdom in 2008. 

Attorneys for London-based 2Point9 say that a 2019 remix of “Ride It” by Kosovo-based producer DJ Regard, whose real name is Dardan Aliu, illegally sampled the master recording of Sean’s original track without clearing its use.

First posted on TikTok, Regard’s “Ride It” quickly became a viral hit before being licensed by Sony-owned imprint Ministry of Sound Recordings and officially released in July 2019.

The track peaked at number two in the U.K. singles chart the same year. In the U.S., Regard’s “Ride It” peaked at number 62 on the Hot 100 (where it spent 10 weeks on the chart) and number three on the Billboard Top 100 Hot Dance/Electronic chart.

The song has since gone on to be streamed more than 1.3 billion times on Spotify, while the video has been viewed more than 285 million times on Regard’s official YouTube channel. 2Point9 says total YouTube views of the remix have crossed 500 million and well over 4 million videos have been created by TikTok users.

The London-based indie, which was founded by Billy Grant and Rob Stuart in 2000, alleges that Ministry of Sound Recordings was notified that the track featured an unauthorized sample of Jay Sean’s 2008 song when it first released it, but “chose not to enter into any meaningful commercial discussions” over clearing the sample. 

2Point9’s legal claim is for infringement of the production master recording rights of the original version of “Ride It,” which the label says it owns on a worldwide basis. 

The indie label employed producer Alan Sampson in 2007 to work with Jay Sean, real name Kamaljit Singh Jhooti, on a number of songs, including “Ride It.” Sampson is not listed among the claimants and Billboard understands that the producer assigned his share of the master recording rights to 2Point9 under the terms of his 2007 production contract.  

Attorneys for 2Point9 say that when Ministry of Sound was first told in 2019 that the DJ Regard version of “Ride It” featured an unauthorized sample, the Sony-owned label rejected their claims and insisted the new song featured a re-recording of Sean’s vocal.

Several months later, Ministry of Sound acknowledged that Regard’s song did feature parts of the original recording and subsequently replaced the infringing sample with a re-recorded version.

The re-recorded “Ride It” was commercially released in late 2019 but was assigned the same ISRC code as the earlier infringing song, say 2Point9. The indie label infers this was done to prevent any distinction being drawn between the two songs when tracking global plays. The original DJ Regard track (featuring the unauthorized sample) still continued to receive regular airplay in the U.K. after the new version was released, claim 2Point9.

“Throughout the entire time we have been pursuing this claim, Ministry of Sound Recordings has treated our label with arrogance and dismissiveness,” said Billy Grant, co-founder of 2Point9 Records, in a statement.

“Why they think that this kind of behaviour against a small label is acceptable is bewildering,” said Grant, noting that prior to Ministry of Sound’s acquisition by Sony Music Entertainment in 2016 it too was an independent label.

Grant vowed to continue his legal fight “until we get justice” and said his company was “determined” to make Ministry of Sound realize “that it is not OK to ride roughshod over the commercial rights of those in the independent sector and that there are consequences for doing so.”    

According to legal papers, 2Point9 Records has not yet been able to fully quantify the size of its losses and damages relating to the infringing recording but believes them to be substantial. Sony Music U.K. said it would not be commenting whilst the legal case is ongoing.