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Childish Gambino Wins Appeals Court Ruling Ending Lawsuit That Claimed He Stole ‘This Is America’

Childish Gambino beats a lawsuit that claimed his “This Is America” stole elements from an earlier song.

In a ruling Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a judge’s decision last year dismissing the lawsuit, which claimed that Glover’s 2018 song was “practically identical” to a 2016 track called “Made In America” by a rapper named Kidd Wes. The earlier ruling said Glover had done nothing wrong because the two songs were “entirely different.” But in Friday’s decision, the appeals court rejected the case for even simpler reasons: that Wes (Emelike Nwosuocha) had failed to secure the proper copyrights on his track. Nwosuocha sued in May 2021, claiming there were “unmissable” similarities between the song and his own “Made In America,” including the “flow” — the cadence, rhyming schemes, rhythm and other characteristics of hip hop lyrics.

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