A US judge has dismissed that previously reported copyright infringement lawsuit that was filed against Beyonce Knowles last year by singer songwriter Jennifer Armour.
Armour claimed that Beyonce's 2003 hit 'Baby Boy' included lyrics from her song 'Got A Little Bit Of Love For You'. Knowles, Armour said, had had access to her song because her former manager had provided a copy of it to execs at Beyonce's record label, Columbia. Key people at Atlantic Records, who represented Sean Paul, Knowles' collaborator on the track, had also been sent a copy.
However, whether or not Knowles had ever heard Armour's track was not, in the end, relevant because court officials undertook a 'side-by-side' comparison of the two songs - the basic test in any copyright infringement case of this kind - and from that they ruled that the songs were "substantially dissimilar", leading to Armour's case being dismissed.
Welcoming that ruling, Knowles said in statement yesterday: "It's unfortunate that lawsuits such as this one occur, but I am grateful and relieved to have this behind me and I am eager to move on".