Sunday, November 27, 2011

Kanye West Cites Nietzsche


Last year Kanye West was sued in Federal Court by a music producer who claimed Kanye stole the hit song "Stronger" from him.

The case was dismissed but the guy appealed and in his deposition on Friday Kanye argued that he copied 19th- century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, not Vincent Peters from the south side of Chicago...

Vincent Peters, known professionally as Vincent P claims he gave Kanye's business manager, John Monopoly, a copy of his song, also called "Stronger", in 2006 and seven months later Kanye released his version of "Stronger".

Both songs contain variations of Nietzsche's quote "What does not kill me, makes me stronger", both rhymed stronger with wronger and both make reference to model Kate Moss.

However, at Friday's hearing Kanye's lawyers called it ludicrous for Vincent to make copyright claims on rap lyrics derived from Nietzsche saying,
"it would create a dangerously low threshold for establishing copyright protection over otherwise commonplace words and phrases."