Demi Lovato faces copyright claim over ‘Stars’
Singer Demi Lovato has been targeted in a copyright infringement lawsuit by a US-based Indie band, in a dispute centring on her song “Stars”.
In a complaint filed at the US District Court for the Central District of California yesterday, August 22, Derek Miller and Sydney Alexis Krauss, members of indie band Sleigh Bells, said “Stars” contains material taken from its track “Infinity Guitars”.
“Stars” was included in Lovato’s album “Confident”, released in the US in October last year.
Miller and Krauss are the guitarist and singer of Sleigh Bells and claim to have written “Infinity Guitars” as part of the debut album “Treats”, released in 2010.
The pair claim that Lovato wilfully infringed the track.
According to the complaint, a comparison of the two songs reveals that, “at the very least, the combination of the hand claps and bass drum, structured as three quarter beats and a rest, with the bass drum providing a counter-rhythm to the hand claps, is at least substantially similar in both works”.
It adds that each of the songs are comprised of and contain “virtually identical content” and that analyses of the two songs reveal that they are, “at least in part, substantially similar”.
The songwriters are asking for statutory, restitutionary and actual damages, as well as attorneys' fees.
UMG Recordings and the umbrella group of UMG, Island Records, are also named as defendants.
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