July 6, 2022
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As reported by Billboard, Dua Lipa is currently facing two copyright lawsuits – one in New York and one in California – in relation to her hit song “Levitating”, which broke records as the longest-charting Billboard Hot 100 Hit ever among women.
Dua Lipa retained the same New York-based lawyer who has represented Drake, Katy Perry, and Jay-Z, to name a few, in similar cases.
The New York suit claims that Dua Lipa’s song copies the 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and the 1980 song “Don Diablo”, both written by songwriters L. Russel Brown and Sandy Linzer. Brown and Linzer claim that a melody played in the opening of “Levitating” (which melody begins with “If you wanna run away with me”) duplicates a melody heard in their two songs, and that this melody helped turn Dua Lipa’s song into a sensation on social media apps such as TikTok.
The California case was brought by a Florida reggae bland, Artikal Sound System, who claim that Dua Lipa stole the core hook from their 2017 song “Live your Life”. The plaintiff claims that “Levitating” is so similar to their song that it is “highly unlikely ‘Levitating’ was created independently”.
Dua Lipa’s counsel is reportedly working on filing answers to both cases.
Authors: Taryn Wunder and Caitlin Woodford