Songwriter to Kanye -- You Jacked My "Good Life"!

Posted Mar 26th 2008 11:19AM by TMZ Staff

A wacky songwriter-producer in Maryland says that Kanye West is diggin' his gold, lifting his tune "Volume of Good Life" for the Kanye smash hit "Good Life."

In a rambling lawsuit filed in Maryland District Court, Dayna Staggs (aka D'Mystro) is suing Kanye -- and his record label, Roc-a-Fella -- for copyright infringement. Staggs says that West "didn't obtain a license to use 'Volume of Good Life'" for his tune, and points out that Kanye was "only at the age of 6 or 7 years of age [sic]" when his song was written.

D'Mystro is also peeved because Kanye's song "contains vulgar and offensive" images and "harms the reputation" of his much cleaner song. He wants 85% of all world sales of the proceeds from the music that uses his work, though he doesn't explain how he came up with that number. Kanye's label hasn't returned a message seeking comment.

Filed under: Celebrity Justice, Music

Comments [23]

Digg it Del.icio.us My Yahoo Sphere RSS MySpace Permalink Email

Reader Comments

(Page 1 of 2) | 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 15 Comments

1. FIRST!!!!

Posted at 11:26AM on Mar 26th 2008 by sasha

2. Can't keep a good fella down.

Posted at 11:28AM on Mar 26th 2008 by wasted days and wasted nights

3. Gimme a break! This is ridiculous.. Kanye is awesome. Why didnt this come up like a year ago when the song first came out? Some crazy nut who cant make money off his own music so he needs to sue Kanye... ya okay...

Posted at 11:32AM on Mar 26th 2008 by Chels

4. I wonder when this pop, rap, and hip hop era will finally be over. All genres end eventually. Perhaps only the bad ones take longer. If you like this stuff please realize that you are listening to a digitally enhanced monotone drone repetitive vocal layered on top of a drum machine dominated computer generated rhythm track. Success and wealth should only be bestowed on true artists such as singer songwriter virtuoso instrumentalists.

Posted at 11:45AM on Mar 26th 2008 by MartinD28

5. Way to keep original, Kayne, you pathetic, WHINEY little b!tch!

VINCE GILL MADE FUN OF YOU ON NATIONAL TV! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

VINCE
GILL!

Posted at 11:48AM on Mar 26th 2008 by Stupid little monkey

6. Qoute: "1. FIRST!!!!

Posted at 11:26AM on Mar 26th 2008 by sasha"

First with notyhing to say........ Like Kanye.

Kanye has Zero talent... and probably can't even write his own name without stealing the letters from Vannna White.

Another thug, stealing.. shocker.

Posted at 12:22PM on Mar 26th 2008 by BlueJayFlys

7. Hope this guy takes the tired poser West to the cleaners! Hate him!

Posted at 12:33PM on Mar 26th 2008 by Hells Kitchen dogwalker

8. Kanye is a whiny little bitch ...boohoo. O I seen Vince Gill that was awesome.

Posted at 12:34PM on Mar 26th 2008 by anonymous

9. whiney **

Posted at 12:36PM on Mar 26th 2008 by anonymous

10. I just checked his myspace and he has a photo of a "platinum" record. It's a fake. There is no such thing as the ARA, it's a custom made plaque to look like the real thing, but it's the furthest thing from real. What a joke this guy is. He writes in his lawsuit that he has received Gold Records, et al but that is a fabrication and is reason to get this thrown out of court. The RIAA owns the name and likeness of Gold and Platinum records.

Posted at 1:11PM on Mar 26th 2008 by Dave

11. What? Kanye stool music from somebody? Wow. Hellloooo...that is all that guys ever does is steal music from someone else and make it suck. Get lost Kanye.

Posted at 1:37PM on Mar 26th 2008 by kanye sucks

12. How is Kanye a thug, BlueJayFlys? You are a racist idiot.

Posted at 1:46PM on Mar 26th 2008 by Aura

13. I can not stand kanye west. he has no talent what so ever, he just does not. Anyone that tries to tell me that he is so great and so talented must be smoking a huge crack pipe

Posted at 1:54PM on Mar 26th 2008 by I Am Me

14. Kanye sucks, all he does is bitch and complain.

Posted at 1:54PM on Mar 26th 2008 by Gretchen Wilson

15. If the guy actually wrote the song...why only 85%? He should get it all. They're all screwed in the head.

Posted at 2:34PM on Mar 26th 2008 by The Canuck

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 15 Comments

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry.
Inappropriate or purely promotional comments may be removed. E-mail addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Your e-mail address is what makes your comments unique, not your user name. To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or e-mail address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to three URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted -- no need to use <p> or <br> tags.