This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
And Finally Artist News Business News Labels & Publishers Legal
Dua Lipa sued in latest song theft case
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 3 March 2022
Time now to announce this week’s Song Thief Of The Week. Well done, Dua Lipa! Oh, hang on, that’s Alleged Song Thief Of The Week. That’s really important. Alleged everybody, definitely alleged.
Because, yes, another slightly dubious song-theft lawsuit has been filed in the US courts. Florida-based band Artikal Sound System reckon that Dua Lipa’s 2020 hit ‘Levitating’ is a big old rip off of their 2017 track ‘Live Your Life’.
Though, in their initial legal filing at least, they don’t provide the customary detailed musical analysis as to what notes and beats the two songs have in common. Nor do they quote one of those musicologists insisting the two songs are so similar it can’t possibly be a coincidence. Nor do they provide an extensive theory as to how exactly Dua Lipa got to hear their track before writing ‘Levitating’.
“Artikal Sound System has been performing and touring together since 2010 and their album upon which the song ‘Live Your Life’ appears charted on the Billboard charts at number two in the reggae section in 2017”, their lawsuits states. “‘Live Your Life’ was commercially released on CD Baby in 2017 and appeared on a variety of streaming services including Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, Amazon and SoundCloud. The recording was and continues to be commercially available”.
“In 2020, on information and belief, defendants listened to and copied ‘Live Your Life’ before and during the time when they were writing ‘Levitating’”, it then adds. “‘Levitating’ is substantially similar to ‘Live Your Life’. Given the degree of similarity, it is highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently from ‘Live Your Life'”.
“Highly unlikely” you say? Well, what are you waiting for District Court Of The Central District Of California Western Division? Give those guys some statutory damages. We now await Dua Lipa’s indignant and dismissive response.
You can listen to ‘Live Your Life’ and then compare it with ‘Levitating’ for yourself here:
