Dua Lipa and Sony Music Publishing face two copyright infringement complaints over her massive hit “Levitating.”
Reggae band Artikal Sound System sued Dua Lipa and her fellow “Levitating” songwriters over copyright infringement. They claim that Lipa and her team copied elements of their 2017’s “Live Your Life” without permission to create “Levitating.”
“Given the degree of similarity,” the plaintiffs wrote, “it is highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently from ‘Live Your Life.’”
A second case came from Cory Daye, that alleged that “Levitating” is “substantially similar” to his 1979’s “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and 1980’s Spanish-language “Don Diablo.”
“The ‘Levitating’ writers never heard the LS Compositions,” Dua Lipa’s attorneys wrote supporting their motion to dismiss the lawsuit. “The alleged similarities – a descending scale in which each pitch is repeated on evenly spaced notes and a common clave rhythm – are unprotectable and the result of the concurrent use of basic musical building blocks. But the Court need not reach these matters because the Complaint fails to state a claim.”
“We write to provide a further update that the Cope Defendants filed a motion to transfer the Cope Action to the Southern District of New York on November 14, 2022, seeking both actions to be maintained in a single forum,” the text reads. “We will continue to update the Court on the status of that motion.”
– Excerpt from an article for Digital Music News by Dylan Smith. Read the full article here.
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