Dua Lipa has been accused of infringing two songwriters’ copyright with her 2020 single Levitating.
Songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in a Manhattan federal court on Friday. In the complaint, they accused Lipa of copying their 1979 song Wiggle and Giggle All Night and 1980 tune Don Diablo and insisted Levitating’s opening melody was a “duplicate” of the melody to their songs.
“Defendants have levitated away plaintiffs’ intellectual property,” lawyers for Brown and Linzer wrote in the complaint, reports Billboard. “Plaintiffs bring suit so that defendants cannot wiggle out of their willful infringement.
“The signature melody is the most listened to and recognizable part of the infringing works and plays a crucial role in their popularity… Because video creators frequently truncate the already brief snippets of sound on TikTok, the signature melody often comprises fifty per cent or more of these viral videos.”
They also highlighted press interviews in which the 26-year-old allegedly “admitted that she deliberately emulated prior eras” and “took inspiration” from old songs to give her 2020 album Future Nostalgia a “retro” sound.
The New Rules hitmaker is being sued alongside rapper DaBaby, who features on the track, as well as Warner Music Group and others involved in the song.
This legal action was filed just days after Lipa was accused of copyright infringement over the same single. The reggae band Artikal Sound System has claimed she copied their little-known 2017 track titled Live Your Life.
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