Dua Lipa has won the dismissal of a lawsuit that had accused her of copying her 2020 hit track ‘Levitating’ from two other songs.
Back in 2022, the pop star was sued by songwriters L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer who claimed that Lipa had plagiarised their songs – 1979’s ‘Wiggle And Giggle All Night’ and 1980’s ‘Don Diablo’ while creating ‘Levatiating’.
“The signature melody is the most listened to and recognizable part of the infringing works and plays a crucial role in their popularity,” the complaint read (via Billboard). “Because video creators frequently truncate the already brief snippets of sound on TikTok, the signature melody often comprises fifty percent or more of these viral videos.”
As per BBC, Yesterday (March 27), US Judge Katherine Polk Failla went on to rule that Lipa’s song and L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer songs only had generic similarities along with non-copyrightable musical elements which had been previously used by the likes of Mozart and the Bee Gees in their 1977 hit ‘Stayin’ Alive’.
Lipa’s court win marked the second time she had won a plagiarism suit against her hit song. The Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System had previously sued the pop singer after claiming that she had copied the chorus of ‘Levitating’ from their 2015 song ‘Live Your Life’.
In 2023, the case was dropped after a judge ruled that there was no evidence that the three-time Grammy award winning singer and her co-writers had “access” to Artikal Sound System’s song.
However, Lipa still has another outstanding lawsuit over ‘Levitating’ against producer Bosko Kante, who had claimed he never granted the star permission to use his “talk box” recording in remixed versions.
Lipa previously spoke to NME as part of The Big Read around the time of the release of her 2020 album ‘Future Nostalgia’. Speaking about the LP, Lipa shared: “I’m super happy that everybody gets to have [the album]. The response has been really nice and I couldn’t have wanted it to go any other way. Music serves as an escape and I’m hoping that this music just brings some light and joy, and takes away from what’s going on outside.”
She also discussed the importance of speaking up for what she believes in. “I haven’t been told not to say stuff about things I feel passionate about and, if somebody did, I wouldn’t listen. I’ve always been this way and I feel like nothing can really change who I am as a person. It’s really important to talk about topics and normalise them.”
In other news, Lipa recently covered the INXS‘ classic track ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ during her concert in Sydney, Australia.
