Dua Lipa scored a victory this week in a copyright infringement lawsuit over her 2020 hit “Levitating.”
U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes said there is no evidence that Lipa or anyone else involved in the creation of the song ever heard “Live Your Life” by Artikal Sound System.
The Florida reggae band sued last year in Los Angeles over alleged similarities between “Levitating” and its 2017 song.
Lipa is credited as co-writer of “Levitating,” which was penned by Clarence Coffee Jr., Sarah Hudson and Canada’s Stephen Kozmeniuk.
In a ruling on Monday, Sykes said there is no “reasonable likelihood that defendants actually encountered plaintiffs’ song” and Artikal Sound System’s claims were “too generic or too insubstantial” to form a lawsuit.
“Plaintiffs’ failure to specify how frequently they performed ‘Live Your Life’ publicly during the specified period, where these performances took place, and the size of the venues and/or audiences precludes the Court from finding that Plaintiffs’ live performances of the song plausibly contributed to its saturation of markets in which Defendants would have encountered it,” she wrote.
Sykes left the door open for Artikal Sound System to amend its statement of claim.
“Levitating” is the subject of another copyright infringement lawsuit. In a complaint filed in New York, songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer accused the pop star of copying their 1979 track “Wiggle and Giggle All Night” and 1980’s “Don Diablo.”