Juice Wrld Served With $15M ‘Lucid Dreams’ Copyright Lawsuit

Juice Wrld’s most-streamed song “Lucid Dreams” is back in the press and not because of its career-highlighting success this time.

The Chicago-born artist is being sued for $15 million by punk-rock band Yellowcard, according to XXL Magazine, for copyright infringement. The group claims that “Lucid Dreams” sounds a little too close to their 2006 hit “Holly Wood Died” and that he illegally sampled certain elements.

A complaint was filed on Monday (Oct. 21) under the United States District Court of California. Yellowcard made a statement requesting that they should be awarded damages from Juice Wrld’s tours and public appearances because of his massive mainstream success giving him “substantial opportunities to tour and perform around the world.”

The suit also states that Juice and his producers were aware that they copied “Holly Wood Died” because it “directly misappropriates quantitative and qualitatively important portions of ['Holly Wood Died'] in a manner that is easily recognizable to the ordinary observer.”

Influenced by the lyricism of Travis Scott and Post Malone, Juice Wrld blends R&B, rock and a wide range of instrumentation as a hip-hop musician and rapper.

Yet Yellowcard claims that Juice’s emo and punk rock influences intertwined with his heartfelt appreciation of the rock band Fall Out Boy and the Devil Wears Prada, his knowledge of Yellowcard and “Holly Wood Died” came soon after.

“As alleged in the complaint, this is not just a generic emo-rap song, but is a blatant copy of significant original compositional elements of ‘Holly Wood Died’ in several respects,” said Yellowcard’s lawyer, Richard Busch, in a statement to the Rolling Stone.

Released in May 2018 and making it to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, “Lucid Dreams” came off his album Goodbye & Good Riddance followed by his 2019 album, Death Race for Love, with the standout hit “Robbery.” Juice recently released “Bandit” with YoungBoy Never Broke Again at the start of October.

He has not spoken out publicly in response to the lawsuit.