Sam Smith and Normani have prevailed in their copyright infringement battle over their 2019 collaboration Dancing With a Stranger.
Songwriters Jordan Vincent, Christopher Miranda and Rosco Banlaoi sued the singers in March 2022 for allegedly infringing upon the copyright of their 2015 track of the same name.
They argued that Dancing With a Stranger, co-written with songwriter Jimmy Napes and production duo Stargate, copied the “lyrics, pitch sequence, melodic contour, metric placement of the syllables, rhythm, feel, and structure” of their song.
Lawyers for Sam and Normani asked for the lawsuit to be rejected in September 2022, and a federal judge in California sided with them on Wednesday and agreed to dismiss the case.
According to Rolling Stone, Judge Wesley L. Hsu ruled that “most if not all of the Plaintiff’s claimed similarities” were not protectable by law and that musical building blocks that belong to the public domain could not be protected.
In addition, Judge Hsu found that the phrase “dancing with a stranger” was not unique enough to be protected by copyright as earlier songs contain “nearly twenty references to the term”.
The Unholy singer and former Fifth Harmony star have yet to comment on their legal victory.
Source: www.music-news.com
