The pop star had been accused of plagiarising the 1979 disco track Wiggle and Giggle All Night.
  • Albbi@lemmy.caEnglish
    5·
    8 days ago

    However, she is still facing a third legal challenge over the song, from musician Bosko Kante - a featured artist on Levitating, who sang vocals through a talk box.

    That’s a lot of legal challenges against one song. Wow.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      8 days ago

      Practically every single major pop music writer has faced a legal challenge. The more successful a song, the more people come out of the woodwork to cash in.

      There are no new notes, no new chord progressions, no new rhythms, at least not in the mainstream. People love songs that sound vaguely like something else they already know, because those melodies and rhythms are associated with emotions already. So popular artists are constantly trying to make new songs that sound like songs people already like.

      This is not a new phenomenon, and it’s why music trends all seem to congeal around a singularity until people get sick of it. It happens in all genres, even experimental music like jazz, dubstep, and screamo, where people try to push the limits of taste and art. Eventually patterns emerge and find the repeating cycle of success, saturation, and surfeit.

      And sometimes that works out for lawyers who want to get paid.

  • Mothra@mander.xyzEnglish
    4·
    8 days ago

    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.

    I never heard any of these and wasn’t even sure which song Levitating was so I went and listened to all. The wiggle one, I agree with the judge. But the chorus sounds exactly like Live Your Life. Now that’s a ripoff. What amazes me is that you can get away with this saying “no your honor I never heard of this song before and there is no evidence of me ever listening to it”. That’s outrageous. Especially in this day and age where you can listen to music from a million platforms and devices. It’s on YouTube - can you make it more accessible than that??

    • gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com
      2·
      8 days ago

      Yeah, I didn’t even know what Levitating was called (only heard it in commercials and stuff) and I immediately recognized what song it was from listening to Live Your Life. That’s pretty damning.

    • kautau@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      Also maybe if it was just her. But big artists like her write their music with a huge team. In this case:

      • Dua Lipa
      • Clarence Coffee Jr
      • Sarah Hudson
      • Stephen Kozmeniuk, known professionally as Koz
      • Jonathan Lyndale known professionally as DaBaby

      Are all listed as songwriters on this track, so the idea that nobody involved had heard Live Your Life is pretty unlikely