Dua Lipa Prevails in Copyright Battle Over "Levitating"

Dua Lipa's recent legal victory over allegations of copyright infringement regarding her song "Levitating" highlights the challenges faced in music copyright law, as she successfully refutes claims from two songwriters who contended she copied elements from their earlier tracks.

Dua Lipa has triumphed in a legal dispute surrounding her popular song "Levitating," fending off accusations of copyright infringement from two songwriters, L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer. The lawsuit, filed in 2022, alleged that Lipa had plagiarized their 1979 disco tune "Wiggle and Giggle All Night" and 1980's "Don Diablo."

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla concluded that the similarities cited were generic and not subject to copyright protection. She pointed out that the elements in question have been utilized in various forms across music history, including works by Mozart, Gilbert and Sullivan, and the Bee Gees in "Stayin' Alive."

This ruling marks the second copyright challenge Lipa has successfully navigated concerning "Levitating," which gained worldwide acclaim in 2020. Previously, she faced a lawsuit from the Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System, which claimed that her song borrowed its chorus from their 2015 track "Live Your Life." That case was also dismissed when a judge found no evidence that Lipa or her collaborators had access to the original song—an essential criterion for proving copyright infringement.

Nonetheless, Lipa remains embroiled in a third legal claim related to "Levitating." Musician Bosko Kante, who contributed vocals to the track via a talk box, initiated a lawsuit in 2023. Kante alleges that his contributions have been used in remixes without his consent and is seeking damages of at least $2 million, alongside a share of the profits from those remixes, which he claims could amount to $20 million.

The central argument in Brown and Linzer’s case was that Lipa's opening melody in "Levitating" was a "duplicate" of their songs. However, Judge Failla maintained that such musical attributes were too commonplace to warrant protection. "The court finds that a musical style, defined by plaintiffs as 'pop with a disco feel,' and a musical function, defined by plaintiffs to include 'entertainment and dancing,' cannot possibly be protectable," she stated. "To hold otherwise would be to completely foreclose the further development of music in that genre or for that purpose."

Interestingly, the judge’s ruling coincided with the fifth anniversary of "Levitating's" original release as part of Lipa's acclaimed album "Future Nostalgia." In response to the decision, attorneys for Brown and Linzer expressed their intent to appeal, stating that they "respectfully disagreed" with the ruling. The BBC has reached out to Dua Lipa for comments regarding the case.