In 1987, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley was one of the hottest hits on Billboard, playing on radio stations across the nation and all day long on MTV when they still played music videos. Rickrolling came along about 20 years later when an internet sensation began of pranking people with the song in the most unexpected places, but today it’s no prank that Astley is suing Yung Gravy over the imitation of his voice.
According to Billboard, Astley filed a suit on Thursday in an L.A. court that claims Gravy’s 2022 breakout hit “Betty (Get Money)” violates “the singer’s so-called right of publicity” because the singer in the “Never Gonna Give You Up” interpolation in the song sounds just like Astley. In the court documents, Astley’s lawyer noted, “In an effort to capitalize off of the immense popularity and goodwill of Mr. Astley, defendants … conspired to include a deliberate and nearly indistinguishable imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice throughout the song, the public could not tell the difference. The imitation of Mr. Astley’s voice was so successful the public believed it was actually Mr. Astley singing.”
To be clear, Gravy did secure the rights to recreate the sounds of the original hit and insert them into his own song, a process known as interpolation. However, he wasn’t allowed to simply sample the song, the process of inserting the original copy. The music was recreated and the singer sounds so much like Astley, it’s almost indistinguishable. While that will play out in a court of law between lawyers and judges, the internet is providing armchair judgments of their own.
The greatest rickroll of all time could be achieved here. In fact, it’s already happening.
The specifics of the case are very baffling. It’s a good bit for the legal parties to go through as they sort out all the details. For instance, if Gravy secured the right to the music and the instruments sound the same as the original, why can’t a voice sound similar? Can the sound of a voice be owned?
It would appear that there is a landmark case that says the sound of someone’s voice can be owned by them.
Will there be a moment when Astley jumps out of the shadows or from around a corner and starts singing to say he pranked us all? We’ll have to wait and see if we’re all being pranked or if this is on the up and up.