JUDGE DISMISSES DUA LIPA 'LEVITATING' INFRINGEMENT SUIT

Dua Lipa has won the dismissal of a second copyright-infringement lawsuit involving her 2020 smash "Levitating," which songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer claimed stole key elements of their songs "Wiggle and Giggle All Night" (1979) and "Don Diablo" (1980).

Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled on Thursday (3/27) 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," and commented, "To hold otherwise would be to completely foreclose the further development of music in that genre or for that purpose.”

Brown and Linzer had alleged that "Levitating" copied both a unique "patter style" and rapid tempo, elements the judge said had been "used for centuries" in everything from opera to The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive."

“It is possible that a ‘layperson’ could listen to portions of plaintiffs’ and defendants’ songs and hear similarities,” she wrote. “But the similarity between the works concerns only non-copyrightable elements of the plaintiffs’ work.”

Brown and Linzer's attorney, Jason T. Brown, told Billboard (paywalled) that the songwriters would appeal. “There’s a growing disconnect between how these cases are decided—by academically analyzing briefs, bar lines and musical notation—versus how audiences actually experience music," he said.

"Levitating" was one of several huge hits on Future Nostalgia, Lipa's 2020 Warner album. It was previously the subject of a copyright-infringement suit by the Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System, which was dropped in 2023.

Failla said her decision was informed by similar recent suits against Ed Sheeran, who was found to have used only common, un-copyrightable elements from Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" in his 2014 song "Thinking Out Loud."