Yes Is Being Sued for Alleged Copyright Infringement Over Their Song “Dare to Know”

The Yes song “The Ice Bridge” is raising eyebrows due to its alleged similarity to a composition by Francis Monkman. Keyboardist for Yes, Geoff Downes, addressed the comparisons, As Stereogum puts it, he claimed that “elements from ‘The Ice Bridge’ were ‘sourced’ from a Monkman piece.” Downes allegedly mistook the Monkman composition for one of his own. Monkman has since been given songwriting credits on “The Ice Bridge”. 

However, now Yes is wrapped up in a legal battle after being sued for alleged copyright infringement in their song “Dare to Know.” “Dare to Know” is the second single from Yes’ album The Quest. The lawsuit against Yes was filed in Los Angeles on Wednesday by Rudolph Zahler, who also goes by the alias Riz Story. Zahler is taking on Yes, claiming that they allegedly stole parts of his song “Reunion” from the film A Winter Rose.

According to the same report by Stereogum mentioned previously, Zahler and the singer of Yes, John Davison, met in 1990 through their mutual friend, the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Zahler claims that he, Davison and Hawkins played in a band together in their early 20s and in 2013, Davison would ask for Zahler’s help co-writing songs for Yes.

Zahler claims that the time of these songwriting sessions was the same time as he wrote “Reunion”. He even mentions that Davison allegedly complimented him on the song, but then goes on to claim that Davison secretly brought “Reunion” to Steve Howe, guitarist for Yes. 

Stereogum shared a statement made by Zahler’s side: 

“Mr. Davison decided to just ‘steal’ Mr. Zahler’s song ‘Reunion’ for the album, rather than getting Mr. Zahler’s permission,” the lawsuit reads. “[They] decided to add lyrics to the music, affix the name ‘Dare To Know’ to the song, and attribute sole songwriting credit to Mr. Howe.” The suit says Zahler hired expert musicologist Dr. Ethan Lustig to compare both songs. He determined they have “a pitch similarity percentage of 96%, which is extremely high,” and that “Dare To Know” is “directly based” on “Reunion.”

“Both songs feature near-identical melodic and rhythmic patterns in their melodies,” Lustig said according to the complaint. “The fact that both songs feature such strong melodic and rhythmic similarities on top of also using the same distinctive harmonic sequence creates a very strong similarity that would be extremely unlikely to occur by chance alone.” The suit asks for monetary damages and an injunction requiring Yes to “accord Mr. Zahler sole writing credit for the music in defendants’ ‘Dare To Know’ version of ‘Reunion.’”

Yes gave a comment to Stereogum specifically, saying that the lawsuit was “vindictive, defamatory, delusional garbage. It will be vigorously defended.”