Can you beliebe it? US court revives Justin Bieber copyright dispute
A US appeals court has revived a copyright lawsuit filed against Justin Bieber and Usher after ruling that their versions of the song “Somebody to Love” could be intrinsically similar to the original.
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled yesterday, June 18, that a Virginia district court had incorrectly refused to hear musician Devlin Copeland’s claim that three versions of the track infringed his copyright.
Copeland wrote the song in 2008 and it featured on his album “My Story II”. Later that year, Copeland registered protection for the song.
In 2009, Copeland entered into discussions with music promoters Sangreel Media, a company that helps artists get in touch with industry professionals and music labels such as Island Records and Sony Music.
Sangreel passed on the song to Usher, who Copeland claimed responded positively to it and suggested he should join the singer on tour. However, nothing materialised and in 2010 Usher posted a version of his song “Somebody to Love” on YouTube.
Usher pressed ahead with Bieber to produce two more versions of the song—one that featured on Bieber’s March 2010 album “My World 2.0” and one that was a re-mixed version containing vocals from both Bieber and Usher, released later that year.
In 2013, Copeland filed a claim at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia alleging that both parties had infringed his copyright. Copeland requested $10 million in damages.
But the district court refused to hear the case, and instead granted Bieber and Usher’s subsequent motion for summary judgment. In its decision issued last year, the district court said that while both songs share some aesthetic elements, they differ significantly in “mood, tone and subject matter”.
While the fourth circuit stated that the district court was correct not to engage in analytic dissection of the songs—the process of separating the protected and unprotected elements of a song—the court should have assessed them using intrinsic criteria. This is based on the “total concept and feel” of the song from the position of the intended audience. For this reason, the fourth circuit stated that the district court was wrong to grant the motion for summary judgment.
The fourth circuit ruled that the choruses of Copeland’s and Usher’s and Bieber’s songs are “similar enough” and that a “reasonable jury could find the songs intrinsically similar”.
The case has now been sent back to the district court.
