Judge orders Adele’s “Million Years Ago” withdrawn globally

Adele’s song “Million Years Ago,” from her 2015 album 25, has been ordered to be withdrawn globally, reports The Independent. A judge in Brazil made the ruling on Friday after Brazilian composer Toninho Geraes alleged the Adele track plagiarized his piece “Mulheres” with its instrumental. Geraes is seeking royalties, $160,000 in “moral damages,” and songwriting credit. The injunction was confirmed on Monday.

The injunction requires Sony and Universal to stop “global use, reproduction, distribution, or commercialisation” across both physical and digital platforms. If the Brazilian Sony and Universal subsidiaries refuse to follow the order, they are subject to a fine of $8,000 "per act of non-compliance." They do have the option to appeal the decision, which seems like a foregone conclusion at this point, given that this isn’t the first time the track has faced plagiarism allegations. As The Independent notes in its coverage, quickly after 25 was released, fans in Turkey noticed similarities to Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya’s 1985 song “Acilara Tutunmak.” That incident never made it to the legal arena, and remained merely a discussion point in music circles. “Million Years Ago” is a fairly minimal track, featuring just Adele’s voice and a guitar. As of this writing, only Adele and Greg Kurstin are credited as the song’s writers, with Kurstin credited as the sole producer. 

An interesting piece of the situation here is that 25 is likely one of the final albums many people actually purchased widely, either physically or digitally, before streaming really came to dominate the music industry in the 2010s. The hype coming off her 2011 album 21 was immense, and the album was not available on Spotify, forcing fans to actually spend their money on it if they wanted to hear it. The album is now one of the best-selling albums of all time, and second to only 21 in 2010s album sales. This is all to say that 25 is likely one of the more difficult albums in this day and age to make a ruling of this kind on. Regardless of the merit of the lawsuit, it’s a good study of the benefits of actually buying the music that you love.