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U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla on Tuesday said
songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer could try to prove
"substantial similarity" between "Levitating" and their song
"Wiggle and Giggle All Night."
Lawyers for Lipa and her record label Warner Records did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2022, claimed that "Levitating"
shared "compositional elements" with "Wiggle," most
significantly by duplicating its opening melody.
Defense lawyers argued that it was implausible to believe that
Lipa, 27, heard "Wiggle" before writing "Levitating."
Failla agreed, but said the plaintiffs alleged "just enough
facts" to argue that the songs were so "strikingly similar,"
including by sharing a "repetitive rhythm" and "signature
melody," that Lipa must have copied theirs.
"The court cannot foreclose the possibility of plaintiffs
meeting the undoubtedly high bar of proving striking
similarity," Failla wrote.
Jason Brown, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, in a statement said
they "have great respect for the artists of today but if their
material is used there must be proper attribution and
compensation. We look forward to conducting discovery and taking
this case to trial."
Failla's opinion does not cover the plaintiffs' claim that
"Levitating" copied another song, "Don Diablo," to which they
owned a copyright.
"Levitating," from Lipa's album "Future Nostalgia," spent 77
weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 U.S. singles chart, and was the No.
1 song on Billboard's 2021 year-end chart.
In June, a federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed a lawsuit
accusing Lipa of copying "Levitating" from a 2017 song by the
Florida reggae group Artikal Sound System.
Another lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on July 31 claimed that
Lipa never got permission from the musician Bosko Kante to
include his "talk box" recording in remixes of "Levitating."
The case is Larball Publishing Co et al v Lipa et al, U.S.
District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-01872.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie
Adler)
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