The Weeknd sued for yet another song

Singer The Weeknd is being sued by three songwriters who claim he ripped off their 2004 track "I Need Love" for his song "A Lonely Night".

The suit claims in 2004 to 2005, three British songwriters, Williams Smith, Brian Clover and Scott McCulloch wrote a song called "I Need To Love", which was acquired by Big Life Music which then pitched it "all over the world to many artists".

In 2008, Big Life Music, and its rights to promote the songwriters' songs were acquired by Universal Music. The songwriters were told in 2016 that the label was not going to use the song and had therefore relinquished all rights to it.

However, weeks later they were told The Weeknd released "A Lonely Night," and Clover heard it over the speakers at a store. He thought it sounded similar to their song. The songwriters created an edit of the two songs side by side, and claim there are striking similarities. You can listen to the comparison here.

The lawsuit alleges that one of the writers credited for the song "A Lonely Night" is producer Jason Quenneville, also known as DeHeala. It said DaHeala, who works with The Weeknd, was an in-house producer for Universal Music Publishing and had access to the songwriters' songs. He was given priority access to unexploited songs at Universal, including "I Need To Love."

The songwriters are asking for unspecified damages and US$150,000 per infringement, plus forensic accounting to figure out how much they are owed.

The Weeknd is no stranger to lawsuits. In November, reports came in that he was being sued over his Starboy collab comic with Marvel. Comic book writer Eymun Talasazan said at the time that he was working on a comic that would center on a group of "R&B and rap stars" as far back as 2014. Three years later, Talasazan alleged, he met with the Weeknd's team about bringing a Starboy character into the story.

In another lawsuit, a singer-songwriter named Yasminah sued Daft Punk and The Weeknd in September for allegedly plagiarizing material on their collaborative track, "Starboy". Yasminah is suing The Weeknd and Daft Punk for at least US$5 million. She claims her song "Hooyo", which she co-wrote and released in 2009, shares many of the same elements as "Starboy".

According to the lawsuit The Weeknd has also been accused of copying a composer’s film score to create hit song "The Hills", and that when creating the song "Belong to the World" he sampled the song "Machine Gun" from the band Portishead.

It also said: "according to performing rights organizations’ records, it appears that 'duplicate claims' have been lodged against dozens of songs written and/or performed by The Weeknd, including those co-written by Quenneville."