Dua Lipa wins Levitating copyright lawsuit

Dua Lipa has scored a legal victory in a copyright lawsuit over her 2020 smash Levitating, after a judge dismissed the case.

Lipa was hit with two separate copyright lawsuits in March 2022, one from Florida reggae group Artikal Sound System that was dismissed in June 2023, and another from L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer.

A judge today dismissed the latter in a New York court, explaining that the commonalities between songs were not protected under copyright law.

Brown and Linzer had accused Lipa of copying from two of their songs: 1979's Wiggle and Giggle All Night; and the 1980 song Don Diablo. They claimed that the opening melody of Levitating was a "duplicate" of the melody to their songs, and futher claimed that Lipa had "admitted that she deliberately emulated prior eras" and "took inspiration" to create the sound.

But the judge concluded the copyright infringement claim failed, as it pertained to a descending scale common in all three songs that had an additional note in Levitating.

The judge cited the 2023 Ed Sheeran copyright case, which Sheeran won after denying claims that he copied Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On by stating that "a chord progression and harmonic rhythm, in combination, could not constitute protectable expression under copyright law".

Linzer and Brown's lawyer shared in a statement to Variety that they "respectfully disagree" with the court's ruling, and intend to appeal.