According to a court document published in August 2023, the company Future Roots Inc. which owns the dublab radio station, decided to sue YEAR0001, Yung Lean and Gud for the unauthorized use of De De Mouse - Loop 61 from their INTO INFINITY compilation, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 license. The case is still ongoing, with the most recent update being on February 13th 2025.
Interestingly, the Wayback Machine page for the INTO INFINITY compilation references a different license—one that permits the copying and redistribution of the material, even for commercial purposes, as long as proper credit is given. The document also mentions that De De Mouse entered into a Copyright Assignment Agreement with Dublab in 2023 after the song went viral on TikTok.
The Ginseng Strip 2002 sample is considered one of the most famous samples used in Cloud Rap, with fans trying to find the source of it for years until it was discovered on March 25th 2021 by the user Significant-Mark-603 on the sadboys subreddit. According to the court document, dublab discovered the use of the loop a few days later and contacted YEAR0001 on March 30th regarding the sample. YEAR0001 responded with "We love dublab and we have the upmost respect and admiration for your work. . . . Would love to make something happen with YEAR0001 and dublab one day. Let’s stay on contact!".
After that dublab alleges that YEAR0001 stopped responding to any of their messages, not crediting them for years until they quietly added dublab and De De Mouse to the producer credits on streaming services.
The song gained a massive popularity boost in 2022, becoming the top track of the year on TikTok and amassing over 300 million streams on Spotify and more than 100 million views on YouTube. dublab claims that the success of Ginseng Strip 2002 enabled Yung Lean to perform at Coachella in 2023, attributing much of the track’s success to the Loop 61 sample. The court document also includes several fan comments from SoundCloud and YouTube praising the instrumental and the sample.
On November 1st, 2022, dublab sent a cease-and-desist letter to YEAR0001 due to the unauthorized sampling of Loop 61. They argued that even if YEAR0001 attempted to credit De De Mouse and dublab for the sample at that point, it would be “too little, too late.”
In the document, dublab asserts that they are entitled to damages in an amount to be determined at trial. They are also seeking profits attributable to the infringement, including licensing fees, royalties, advertising revenue, streaming revenue, concert revenue, and any other revenue derived from Ginseng Strip 2002.