{"id":4953,"date":"2025-03-27T21:48:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/dua-lipa-wins-levitating-copyright-case-as-judge-dismisses-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2025-03-27T21:48:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T21:48:30","slug":"dua-lipa-wins-levitating-copyright-case-as-judge-dismisses-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/dua-lipa-wins-levitating-copyright-case-as-judge-dismisses-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Dua Lipa Wins ‘Levitating’ Copyright Case as Judge Dismisses Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tDua Lipa won a ruling Thursday (March 27) dismissing a copyright lawsuit claiming she copied her smash hit song \u201cLevitating\u201d from two different decades-old songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case, filed in 2022 by songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, accused Lipa of ripping off their 1979 song \u201cWiggle and Giggle All Night\u201d and their 1980 song \u201cDon Diablo.\u201d The lawsuit was one of two high-profile copyright cases filed over \u201cLevitating,\u201d a massive hit that spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn her decision, Judge Katherine Polk Failla<\/strong> ruled that Lipa\u2019s song shared only generic elements with Brown and Linzer\u2019s songs \u2014 the kind of basic musical building blocks that are not covered by federal copyright law and cannot be owned by any one songwriter.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe court finds that a musical style, defined by plaintiffs as \u2018pop with a disco feel,\u2019 and a musical function, defined by plaintiffs to include \u2018entertainment and dancing,\u2019 cannot possibly be protectable,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cTo hold otherwise would be to completely foreclose the further development of music in that genre or for that purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe judge said that some of the material Brown and Linzer claimed Lipa stole \u2014 like a \u201cpatter style\u201d featuring rapid singing of one syllable per note \u2014 had been \u201cused for centuries\u201d and existed in operas by Mozart and operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan. The judge said another allegedly infringing element, a rapid tempo, was also \u201ccommon\u201d and had appeared identically in \u201cStayin\u2019 Alive\u201d by the Bee Gees.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt is possible that a \u2018layperson\u2019 could listen to portions of plaintiffs\u2019 and defendants\u2019 songs and hear similarities,\u201d the judge said. \u201cBut \u2026 the similarity between the works concerns only non-copyrightable elements of the plaintiffs\u2019 work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard<\/em>, an attorney for Brown and Linzer said they \u201crespectfully disagree\u201d with the decision and would file an appeal.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis case has always been about standing up for the enduring value of original songwriting, and we continue to believe in the strength of Mr. Brown and Mr. Linzer\u2019s creative legacy,\u201d attorney Jason T. Brown<\/strong>\u00a0said. \u201cThere\u2019s a growing disconnect between how these cases are decided \u2014 by academically analyzing briefs, bar lines, and musical notation\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 versus how audiences actually experience music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for Lipa did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tReleased on Dua Lipa\u2019s 2020 album Future Nostalgia, \u201cLevitating\u201d spent a whopping 41 weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100 \u2014 the longest ever such run for a female artist \u2014 and was later named the No. 1 Hot 100 song of 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn early 2022, the star was sued over the track twice, both over accusations that she had lifted key elements from earlier songs. The first lawsuit came from a Florida reggae band named Artikal Sound System, which claimed Lipa lifted the core hook for her song from their 2015 \u201cLive Your Life.\u201d That case was dropped in 2023 after Lipa\u2019s attorneys won a key early-stage ruling.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second case came from Brown and Linzer, who alleged that Lipa had stolen the melody that starts just a few seconds into her song, when Lipa begins singing, \u201cIf you wanna run away with me\u2026\u201d They called it a \u201cduplicate\u201d of their own songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in Thursday\u2019s ruling, Judge Failla said that claim was merely over \u201ca descending chord and the one additional note\u201d \u2014 a \u201ccombination of two unprotectable elements\u201d that she said are \u201cnot sufficiently numerous or original to constitute an original work entitled to copyright protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn reaching that conclusion, the judge heavily cited from recent litigation against Ed Sheeran over accusations that his \u201cThinking Out Loud\u201d infringed Marvin Gaye\u2018s \u201cLet\u2019s Get It On.\u201d That case also ended with a ruling that Sheeran had used only common, unprotectible elements.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dua Lipa won a ruling Thursday (March 27) dismissing a copyright lawsuit claiming she copied her smash hit song \u201cLevitating\u201d from two different decades-old songs. The case, filed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,429,998,5260,423,303,5262,5261,882],"class_list":["post-4953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-copyright","tag-dismisses","tag-dua","tag-judge","tag-lawsuit","tag-levitating","tag-lipa","tag-wins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953","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=4953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}