Adele has been accused of plagiarizing on her 2015 song “Million Years Ago.”
In an injunction filed Friday in Rio de Janeiro’s sixth commercial court, Brazilian judge Victor Torres ordered that the track off Adele’s “25” album must be banned nationwide from streaming services and other global platforms, according to the Agence France Presse.
The order reportedly threatens the Brazilian subsidiaries of Adele’s labels, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music, with a fine of $8,000 “per act of non-compliance.”
Judge Torres claimed that Adele’s song — which she co-wrote with music producer Greg Kurstin — lifts from Martinho Da Vila’s samba classic “Mulheres.”
Toninho Geraes, who wrote the Brazilian song, originally sued Adele, 36, for plagiarism in 2021.
In the injunction, Adele’s labels were ordered to stop “immediately and globally, from using, reproducing, editing, distributing or commercializing” her ballad.
“International producers and artists who have Brazilian music ‘on their radar’ for possible parasitic use will think twice, given this decision,” Geraes’ attorney, Fredimio Trotta, told the AFP.
Sony and Universal can reportedly appeal the order.
Adele’s “Million Years Ago” was previously accused of plagiarism in 2015 by fans of the late Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya. They claimed Adele’s song was a rip off of Kaya’s 1985 song “Acilara Tutunmak”
However, there was never a legal battle over the claims.
The Post has reached out to Adele’s rep for comment.
Adele released “Million Years Ago” off her third studio album, “25.” The album spawned several of her most popular songs including “Hello” and “When We Were Young.”
The Grammy Award winner talked about what inspired “Million Years Ago” during her 2015 “Adele at the BBC” special with Graham Norton.
“It’s kind of a story about … I drove past Brockwell Park, which is a park in South London I used to live by,” she explained, per Billboard. “It’s where I spent a lot of my youth. It has quite monumental moments of my life that I’ve spent there, and I drove past it and I just literally burst into tears.”
“I really missed it, for no other reason than we’ve all got different things going on and it’s got nothing to do with me not feeling like I can’t go and sit in there and drink a bottle of cider anymore … it’s more that life happens, so I’ve got no one to meet there,” Adele went on.
“That’s basically what it is,” she continued. “And it’s just sort of about that, and about [how] I never realized that this was going to happen. I never, ever realized when I had my guitar in the park, singing to my friends … we never in a million years thought this would ever happen.”
