Dua Lipa wins copyright lawsuit

Pop star Dua Lipa won a copyright lawsuit filed against her by songwriters L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, who claimed her hit single Levitating infringed songs of theirs from 1979 and 1980. Judge Katherine Pok Failla ruled that only "generic similarities" were shared between the tracks and that the descending singsong melody under scrutiny had already been used by Mozart and Gilbert and Sullivan—and found earlier at the disco thanks to the Bee Gees' 1977 hit Stayin' Alive.

It is the second time that Lipa has won a plagiarism case over Levitating, which was a global hit in 2020. She was previously sued by Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System, who claimed Lipa ripped off the chorus for her song from their 2015 track Live Your Life. Their case was dropped in 2023 after a judge ruled there was no evidence that Lipa and her co-writers had "access" to the earlier song – a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit.

The claims in the case are summarized thus by the court: "The court finds that a musical style, defined by plaintiffs as 'pop with a disco feel,' and a musical function, defined by plaintiffs to include 'entertainment and dancing,' cannot possibly be protectable."

Put simply: it's the same, yes, but it was already old when you did it.

Judge Failla's verdict comes days after Mariah Carey won a similar case against a songwriter who claimed her Christmas classic "All I Want For Christmas Is You" infringed their earlier song with the same title. The judge in that case, which touched on millions in royalty payments annually, determined that any similarities were genre clichés.

This generation of optimistic lawsuits follows the much-derided Blurred Lines case, where Marvin Gaye's estate won a copyright lawsuit claiming that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams' song infringed the "feel" of one his songs.

Embedded below, Dua Lipa's Levitating, followed by1979's Wiggle and Giggle All Night and 1980's Don Diablo, the Brown and Linzer songs in question.