Mike Tyson has settled a lawsuit claiming he illegally used the Jay-Z, DMX and Ja Rule song “Murdergram” an Instagram video promoting his boxing match against Jake Paul.
The deal, filed in court Monday, will resolve a case filed last month against the boxing legend by Ty Fyffe, a producer and co-writer of the 1998 track who claimed that Tyson had willfully infringed his copyrights by using the song in a training video ahead of his much-hyped fight with Paul.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed in court filings, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment on Monday. Jay-Z (Shawn Carter), DMX (Earl Simmons) and Ja Rule (Jeffrey Atkins) were not involved in the case.
“Murdergram” was recorded by Jay-Z, with DMX and Ja Rule featured, as part of the soundtrack to the star’s 1998 film Streets Is Watching. Fyffe, a veteran hip-hop producer with a long list of prominent credits, says he served as a producer and co-writer on the song and owns a portion of the copyright.
Fyffe sued in August over a 33-second video Tyson posted to his 33 million Instagram followers in November 2024, just weeks before the bout with Paul. The video allegedly showed Tyson training for the fight – and visibly mouthing along to the hard-nosed lyrics of the song.
When it comes to music, social media has increasingly become a legal minefield. TikTok, Instagram and other services provide their users with huge libraries of fully licensed songs to play over their videos, but those tracks are strictly for personal use and cannot be used for commercial videos. That kind of content requires a separate “synch” license, just like any conventional advertisement on TV.
Fyffe claimed that by using the song in a video hyping his fight with Paul, Tyson was making that kind of commercial use of “Murdergram.” He cited reports that Tyson was paid more than $20 million for the fight, which was watched live by more than 100 million people and broke Netflix viewing records.
“Neither plaintiff nor any of his representatives granted defendant Tyson permission to use the song title ‘Murdergram’ to promote his boxing match with Jake Paul,” the producer wrote in his lawsuit, which argued that he was entitled to both royalties and a cut of Tyson’s profits from the fight. “Defendant Tyson’s conduct was intentional, willful and with full knowledge of plaintiff’s copyright in the song.”