{"id":659405,"date":"2026-10-28T08:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T08:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/659405\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T08:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T08:30:14","slug":"drake-janice-stfu-copyright-lawsuit-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/659405\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake ‘Janice STFU’ Copyright Lawsuit Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEarlier this month, in a lawsuit<\/a> filed in federal court, a producer and rapper from Oregon named Aviel Hirschfield claimed he was driving to Seattle last year in a friend\u2019s borrowed Maybach when \u201cI Follow Rivers,\u201d<\/a> the 2011 indie-pop classic by Swedish singer Lykke Li<\/a>, started playing. It\u2019d been a minute since he\u2019d heard the song; Hirschfield said he was struck by how catchy its hook was. Hirschfield alleged that he then began writing a Lykke Li-inspired<\/a> chorus that, less than six months later, would be featured, verbatim, on Drake<\/a>\u2019s global hit \u201cJanice STFU.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt would be a stunning story if proven to be true, but that lawsuit is dead for now, raising serious questions about the nature \u2014 and legitimacy \u2014 of Hirschfield\u2019s claims. Barely 10 days after it was filed, the case has been voluntarily dismissed, according to a recent court filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dismissal marks a sharp turn of events for a case that was covered and dissected endlessly in the week-plus since the complaint was first filed, from music publications like this one to the mainstream Canadian press to a flurry of vlogs, podcasts, and viral threads debating the legitimacy of the allegations against Drake. Through it all, Drake\u2019s team categorically denied the allegations, describing the lawsuit as \u201cmanufactured and baseless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an initial interview with Rolling Stone last week, a representative for Hirschfield was confident about the producer\u2019s allegations that Drake had stolen \u201chis copyrighted music and [claimed] it as their own\u201d on the chorus of \u201cJanice STFU.\u201d The song anchored Drake\u2019s comeback on Iceman<\/a> and is, by some metrics, one of the biggest hits<\/a> of the rapper\u2019s career. \u201cThe complaint speaks for itself,\u201d the representative said during that initial interview. \u201cThis song was written specifically for Drake using music provided to [Hirschfield] that was created by Drake\u2019s producers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s not clear what transpired after that. But, in a surprising twist, just days after Rolling Stone sent several additional follow-up questions to Hirschfield\u2019s attorney, the producer officially withdrew the case in court.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the center of the short-lived case was a recording<\/a> leaked to X that purported to be a demo recording by Hirschfield, complete with a pitched-down vocal singing the familiar chorus of \u201cJanice STFU.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with Rolling Stone last week, a representative for the producer stood by the legitimacy of the demo recording, stating that \u201cmultiple experts\u201d had already examined the metadata Hirschfield provided for the file and deemed it legitimate. But as soon as it leaked online, assorted internet sleuths wondered if the demo seemed<\/a> suspicious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen it was first reported, the case raised a number of larger questions: Why would Drake, who\u2019s dealt with his share of controversy<\/a>, reputational damage<\/a>, and litigation<\/a> in recent years, open himself to more legal trouble by neglecting to credit a songwriter who wrote the lyrics to the song\u2019s chorus? How did an essentially unknown producer with no mainstream writing credits prior to 2022 become not only a credited songwriter for Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> (he\u2019s listed on one song from Renaissance), but also, so he claimed, the composer of the entire chorus of one of the biggest pop songs of this year? How could Hirschfield have written a song to a beat in January 2026 when another one of the producers involved with the song\u2019s creation recently told Billboard<\/a> that the beat wasn\u2019t written until March? And, finally, in a hit that borrows its chorus melody from a well-known song from 2011, how do copyright<\/a> infringement cases work in a music industry more reliant than ever on interpolations and reinterpretations of older material?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most basic question of the case was even simpler: Who is Aviel Hirschfield? The 33-year-old Portland, Oregon, musician describes himself on LinkedIn as a \u201cstudio manager, audio engineer, and music producer\u201d and states that his clients have included everyone from Playboi Carti and Travis Scott to Star Wars and Disney. (Rolling Stone was unable to reach Hirschfield directly for comment for this story.)<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to making headlines for suing Drake, the most high-profile moment of Hirschfield\u2019s career, by a long measure, was when he received a co-writing credit for \u201cHeated,\u201d an album cut on Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s 2022 album Renaissance. The writing credits for the song are currently shared by more than a dozen different individuals. One of them is Hirschfield; another is Drake. This connection to Drake was emphasized heavily in Hirschfield\u2019s lawsuit, and in much of the initial press surrounding it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen \u201cHeated\u201d was released, Hirschfield exclaimed<\/a> on X that he had \u201cco-produced\u201d Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s song. In some published credits<\/a>, Hirschfield is listed as having provided guitars and co-produced the song. In other versions<\/a> of the credits, Hirschfield (listed as Calev) is credited simply with having provided guitar. Today, on Spotify, he\u2019s credited with being one of 18 songwriters on the track. A representative for Beyonc\u00e9 did not respond when asked to clarify Hirschfield\u2019s contributions to the song.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudging by his online presence, it\u2019s fair to say Hirschfield has dined out on his Beyonc\u00e9 credit. In an industry where name-dropping and connections are currency, who wouldn\u2019t? The journeyman producer has posted repeatedly about the album\u2019s success; when Renaissance was nominated for nine Grammys, he showed up at the awards ceremony in L.A. and managed to give a red-carpet interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI started the idea for the song that I produced maybe five years ago,\u201d Hirschfield said<\/a> then. \u201cI knew that the idea was good. I just had to find the right home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThree years after those awards, Hirschfield brought forth his allegations in the now-dismissed suit against Drake. <\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tSongwriters and producers are often wary of bringing forward copyright claims against big stars, for fear of professional repercussions, says Kevin Greene, a copyright scholar and professor of law. \u201cIf you\u2019re in the songwriting community, you have to think hard about whether you want to sue Drake, even if there\u2019s an infringement,\u201d Greene says. \u201c[It\u2019s a question of], \u2018Do you want to work again? With that on your resume?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd even when songwriters and producers do come forward with allegations of copyright theft involving famous pop songs, that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s easy to assess the merits of their claims. Brian Levenson, an entertainment and copyright lawyer, says it\u2019s not uncommon for his firm to turn down frivolous copyright cases: \u201cI\u2019ve gotten calls that are like, \u2018Billy Joel\u2019s \u201cPiano Man\u201d infringes on my work.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this month, in a lawsuit filed in federal court, a producer and rapper from Oregon named Aviel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7391,2493,83826,1637,146,744,85,46,3195,203251,409],"class_list":["post-659405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-controversy","tag-copyright","tag-crime-and-courts","tag-drake","tag-entertainment","tag-hip-hop","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-lawsuit","tag-lykke-li","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}