Indie band and Demi Lovato sign truce in song dispute

Singer Demi Lovato has settled a clash with a US-based indie band that accused her of copying their song.

Members of Sleigh Bells—Derek Miller and Sydney Alexis Krauss—sued Lovato at the US District Court for the Central District of California in August last year, accusing the singer of taking material from the song “Infinity Guitars”.

Lovato’s song “Stars”, which was included in her album “Confident”, was the allegedly infringing track.

Sleigh Bells claimed that a comparison of the two songs revealed 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”.

The band also claimed that the songs are comprised of “virtually identical content”.

But on Tuesday, December 12, the parties settled their dispute and the case was dismissed with prejudice. District Judge George Hu signed the order.

Lovato is still embroiled in another copyright suit, though. In November, a California-based musician took on Disney, Lovato and actor Idina Menzel over the song “Let it Go”.

Lovato sang a pop version of the song, which is a hit number in the Disney film “Frozen”.

WIPR has reported on numerous cases of singers being sued for copyright infringement.

One of the most high-profile is the dispute between Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke, the writers of hit song “Blurred Lines”, and the family of late soul singer Marvin Gaye.

In August last year, Williams and Thicke appealed against a ruling which had ordered them to pay $7 million to Gaye’s family after a jury found that the song infringed copyright to Gaye’s hit “Got to Give it Up”.

And, according to WIPR readers, the long-running saga appears to have encouraged more people to target high-profile songs for infringement.

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