music industry, but by another R B star, Des ree, who claims the bootylicious diva took one of her songs and covered it without permission.
Beyonce is now promoting the re-release of her latest album, B Day , which includes, in addition to the tracks that also appear on the first version, a couple of new songs. One of these is Still In Love (Kissing You) , which also has a video that airs on the majority of music television channels.
From the day it was released, people started talking about how Beyonce s version was nothing more but a loose cover of Des ree s 90s hit I m Kissing You , which was also featured in the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann s blockbuster movie Romeo and Juliet .
Truth be told now, neither Beyonce nor her record label mentioned that the track was a cover, meaning, it was not officially promoted as such. But Des ree, who also co-wrote the song, begs to differ.
In the court documents filed yesterday, she alleges that her record company was initially in talks with Beyonce s people about the latter covering the song.
The only way Des ree would have agreed with Beyonce covering I m Kissing You was that of signing a contract in which a special clause was to be included. Apparently, the one-time hitmaker (Des ree is mostly known for her 1994 smash hit You Gotta Be ) did not want Beyonce to change the name of the song or to record a video for it.
When negotiations came to a dead end, the lawsuit states, Beyonce blew copyright law altogether and went ahead with the recording of the song and even shot a video for it.
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