Dua Lipa’s lawyer has insisted she’s “never heard” the tracks she is accused of infringing in a copyright lawsuit about her song “Levitating.”
The singer was sued in March by songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, who claimed that the singer copied their 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and 1980 tune “Don Diablo.”
The songwriting duo alleged that Levitating is “substantially similar” to “Wiggle and Giggle All Night,” stealing its “signature melody” and “compositional elements.”
Lawyer Christine Lepera, representing Dua and her co-defendants, responded by filing a letter to a federal judge in New York.
In the letter, she insisted that the case should be dismissed immediately as Dua had no access or exposure to the tracks cited in the lawsuit.
“The “Levitating” writers never heard the (plaintiffs’) compositions. The alleged similarities – a descending scale in which each pitch is repeated on evenly spaced notes and a common clave rhythm – are unprotectable, and the result of the coincidental use of basic musical building blocks,” the letter to Hon. Katherine Polk Failla reads, reports Rolling Stone.
Lepera argued that the lawsuit “fails to plausibly allege a particular chain of events leading to access”, meaning there’s no evidence that Dua came into contact with “Wiggle and Giggle All Night.”
“With respect to ‘Wiggle,’ the complaint merely alleges it achieved certain success in the Netherlands four decades ago. This does not establish ‘saturation,’ and there is no allegation that the songwriters of Levitating were in the Netherlands – or, indeed, had even been born – at that time,” she added.
The songwriters’ attorney Jason T Brown said they were preparing to file a “full rebuttal” to the letter later this week.
Dua lipa also faces a separate copyright infringement lawsuit over “Levitating.”