Rosephanye Powell, an Auburn University music professor and choral composer, has been named in a defamation lawsuit after claiming Indiana Bible College illegally infringed on her original piece.

On May 23, sheet music company Gentry Publications, the company’s owner Fred Bock, and Powell served IBC a cease-and-desist letter stating that its production of “John 1” is derivative of Powell’s original work, “The Word Was God,” according to the legal complaint.

Two days later, IBC posted to its Facebook page that the parties were “discussing the matter privately.”

Since then, the suit claims that “defendants have published and amplified false statements across Dr. Powell’s and Fred Bock’s social-media channels encouraged others to renounce John 1 and IBC and used the Indy Star to publish an article accusing IBC and its writers of unauthorized derivative, copyright infringement, and intellectual dishonesty, among other things.”

“Those statements are false, were made with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth, and have caused reputational harm, loss of prospective contracts, and enrollment and related inquiries at IBC, questioning its integrity,” the complaint reads.

In a post to her Facebook on June 2, the day the complaint was filed, Powell shared screenshots of an email she sent in Feb. 2024 to IBC’s Dean of Worship Studies Tim Hall refusing the college’s request to use the song.

According to the email, this request came after the college had already been programming the song for several years.

“Your arrangement, despite your good intentions, compromises the integrity and intent of this work,” the email reads.

“Thank you for emailing me and respecting my decision to refuse permission for your arrangement.”

“I wish you and your ensemble much success in your project!” it concludes.

Powell added in her email that “The Word Was God” was never meant to be a gospel piece and said that she and several other members of the African American community were “offended” by the college’s appropriation of her original work.

“People try to put us Black people in a box, so they determine that all of our music is sacred is either spirituals or they’re gospel,” she said in her video.

“I didn’t want a gospel arrangement of a song that is in a totally different style and says that Black people are not a monolith.”

“We have many skills,” she continued.

“We have many talents, and that includes classical music. And for him to go take that out of the venue and the style that I wanted it to be that says we’re intelligent enough, we’re gifted enough, and we’re studied enough to do that music that for so long we were not permitted to do, and that’s classical concert music.”

“John 1” debuted on Apple Music on May 2, 2025, and its sheet music was made available for sale.

IBC’s complaint claims that it is an original composition and does not infringe on “any protectable elements” of “The Word Was God.”

But Powell and many of her peers disagree.

“It’s derivative of my work and they won’t admit it,” Powell said in a recently posted video.

And several of her fans and colleagues have taken to her Facebook page to express their support.

“Indiana Bible College didn’t just plagiarize,” wrote Webb Parker, founding executive and artistic director at Irvington Arts Collective and University of Alabama alum.

“They desecrated.”

“They stole Dr. Rosephanye Powell’s “The Word Was God” and thought they could get away with it because they assumed no one would notice,” he continued.

“Or care. Or defend her. Well, we noticed. And we care deeply.”

“And now, in the most pathetic, backwards, and disgraceful display of hubris imaginable, they’re SUING her for DEFAMATION?” he added.

“I rarely express outrage, but this treatment of a wonderful composer and of her work is unacceptable,” wrote Paul Laprade, instructor of choral literature at Concordia University Chicago.

“I conducted this work shortly after its publication and cannot avoid hearing much of its content, style, and even some of its spirit when I hear IBC’s inferior ‘adaptation’.”

“That it is a continuation of appropriation, theft, and done by a religious institution leaves me speechless–we can all be better than this,” he continued.

“Dr. Rosephanye Powell deserves our support: this is a hill to die on.”

IBC is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and has asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana to declare “John 1” does not infringe on and is not derivative of “The Word Was God.”

The complaint also requests the court to order Powell and her publisher “to remove from all websites and social‐media channels any and all defamatory statements concerning Plaintiff, and to publish a formal retraction and apology in the same media in which the defamatory content appeared, including IndyStar.”

It requests a trial by jury.

But Powell and her publisher say they are not backing down.

“You’re going to tell me to be quiet because you’re losing money over something based on my work?” she said in a previous video.

“We’re speaking truth. … They want this to go away.”

“They’ve got the wrong one,” she added.

Efforts to reach Powell and IBC for further comment were not immediately successful.