Dua Lipa Wins Dismissal of ‘Levitating’ Copyright Lawsuit
Artikal Sound System still has the opportunity to file an amended complaint
Dua Lipa attends the Disney+ "Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium" Yellow Brick Road Event at Dodger Stadium on November 20, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. MICHAEL TULLBERG/GETTY IMAGES
A U.S. district judge dismissed a copyright case against Dua Lipa regarding her hit song “Levitating.” The judge in the case, Sunshine Sykes, declared that the reggae band Artikal Sound System failed to prove that Lipa and the creators of Lipa’s hit had access to “Live Your Life” prior to making the song.
“These attenuated links, which bear little connection to either of the two musical compositions at issue here, also do not suggest a reasonable likelihood that defendants actually encountered plaintiffs’ song,” the judge wrote in the ruling, per Billboard.
Attorneys for the reggae band claimed that song was available on physical CDs and streaming platforms, but the judge said that argument was “too insubstantial” to keep the suit alive.
“Plaintiffs’ failure to specify how frequently they performed ‘Live Your Life’ publicly during the specified period, where these performances took place, and the size of the venues and/or audiences precludes the Court from finding that Plaintiffs’ live performances of the song plausibly contributed to its saturation of markets in which Defendants would have encountered it,” the judge wrote, per the outlet.
Monday’s ruling dismissed the lawsuit, but the band could possibly refile an amended complaint by June 16.
The “Live Your Life” lawsuit is one of two cases involving Lipa’s “Levitating.” Songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer claimed in a different suit that “Levitating” copied the duo’s 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and a subsequent 1980 song titled “Don Diablo,” which Brown and Linzer now own after it was found to have infringed on “Wiggle and Giggle All Night.”
“The ‘Levitating’ writers never heard the (plaintiffs’) compositions. 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 coincidental use of basic musical building blocks,” Lipa’s lawyer Christine Lepera said in a letter last August about the Brown and Linzer suit.
“Levitating” was one of the standout singles from her album Future Nostalgia, peaking at Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100.
From Rolling Stone US.
