Robin Schulz has been accused of stealing elements of his new song “Miss You” with Oliver Tree from rising producer southstar, who released a song with the same name, same sample, and seemingly same production (even the same track length) three months prior.
A rework of Oliver Tree’s “Jerk,” “Miss You” initially released by southstar on May 9 has been discovered in playlists and major live sets ever since. Exploding in Germany and rippling globally, southstar’s “Miss You” landed in Spotify’s Viral Charts (no.1 in Germany and no.2 globally) while peaking in the Top 50 Charts in Germany with a no.20 spot and still continuing to ascend.
All that to say that southstar’s song was not some underground hit and it was definitely widely known. It’s also worth mentioning that Robin is German, where the track was no.1 in Spotify’s Viral Charts.
Robin Schulz dropped the seemingly identical track last Friday August 5, with the same name, same sample and, by all audible metrics, the same production marking Schulz’ version as an allegedly direct copy of southstar’s breakout record. (Though Schulz’ version is noticeably better mastered.)
On Instagram stories, southstar called out the producer: “Robin Schulz stole my song ‘Miss You’, which I dropped over a month ago!”
Robin Schulz’s management have made an official statement: “For over 20 years we have navigated fairly and with great respect for all artists and their creative work. Sometimes I am surprised by the audacity of other artists to deliberately disregard rights and works and capitalize on them.”
southstar had all the necessary rights to the sample cleared by his label, Sony. While he would have loved to have Oliver Tree officially on the song as a collaborator, Robin Schulz dropped his version as both he and Oliver are signed to WMG.
Photo by Robert Wunsch