{"id":10548,"date":"2026-05-03T11:09:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/jason-derulo-testifies-at-savage-love-trial-over-song-royalties\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:09:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:09:32","slug":"jason-derulo-testifies-at-savage-love-trial-over-song-royalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/jason-derulo-testifies-at-savage-love-trial-over-song-royalties\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Derulo Testifies at \u2018Savage Love\u2019 Trial Over Song Royalties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tJason Derulo took the witness stand in a Los Angeles federal courtroom on Thursday (April 30) to deny that a session musician on his 2020 chart-topper \u201cSavage Love\u201d deserves writing and production royalties.<\/p>\n

\n\tDerulo and his label, Columbia Records, are defendants in an ongoing civil trial over the credits for \u201cSavage Love,\u201d a viral TikTok hit from August 2020 that later hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 thanks to a remix featuring BTS. The plaintiff is Matthew Spatola, a musician, songwriter and producer who played guitar and bass on the song.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tSpatola alleges that he contributed key creative elements to the instrumentals on \u201cSavage Love,\u201d which sampled an earlier beat by New Zealand-born producer Jawsh 685. He\u2019s now accusing Derulo of \u201ccutting him out completely\u201d from the lucrative royalties that would flow from writing and production credits.<\/p>\n

\n\tDerulo, clad in a blue suit and grey tie, testified on Thursday that Spatola \u201cplayed a beautiful guitar and bass\u201d on \u201cSavage Love.\u201d But the pop singer told jurors he was the one who composed these instrumentals, and that Spatola just played what he was told.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMr. Spatola created absolutely nothing on \u2018Savage Love,\u2019\u201d Derulo testified.<\/p>\n

\n\tDerulo told the jury that he vets potential creative collaborators closely before deciding to work with them in a co-writer or producer capacity. He said that wasn\u2019t the case with Spatola; according to Derulo, he had never even met Spatola before the musician came to his home recording studio for two sessions in April 2020.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would never in a million years just invite somebody off the street, that I\u2019ve never heard what they\u2019ve done, to come in and be a producer for me,\u201d said Derulo. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe case, which was filed in 2023 and went to trial on April 22, highlights the prevalence \u2014\u00a0and potential pitfalls \u2014 of informal dealings between artists and their musical collaborators. It is undisputed that Spatola was paid a $2,000 fee for his work on \u201cSavage Love.\u201d But it\u2019s also undisputed that he and Derulo never formally signed a so-called work-for-hire agreement.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder copyright law, a work-for-hire agreement confirms that a musician does not have authorship rights despite contributing to a song. In this case, no such deal was signed; Derulo merely texted Spatola after the fact asking, \u201c1K good each day?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpatola is now alleging that the absence of work-for-hire paperwork is proof that he deserves creative credits. Derulo disagrees \u2014 and now it\u2019ll be up to a jury to decide which version of events is the truth.<\/p>\n

\n\tJurors are slated to begin deliberating on a verdict next week.<\/p>\n


\"Billboard
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Derulo took the witness stand in a Los Angeles federal courtroom on Thursday (April 30) to deny that a session musician on his 2020 chart-topper \u201cSavage Love\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5185,5184,146,1219,2058,986,2901,342],"class_list":["post-10548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-derulo","tag-jason","tag-love","tag-royalties","tag-savage","tag-song","tag-testifies","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}