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16 November 2016Copyright

Justin Bieber copyright dispute should be dismissed, says judge

A judge has recommended that a $10 million copyright claim against Justin Bieber and Usher centring on the song “Somebody to Love” should be dismissed.

On Monday, November 14, Judge Douglas Miller at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division said that the two celebrities should be granted summary judgment of the case.

Last June, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit revived the claim, filed by musician Devlin Copeland, after ruling that versions of Bieber’s and Usher’s song “Somebody to Love” could be intrinsically similar to Copeland’s, which has the same name.

The court held that a Virginia district court had incorrectly refused to hear Copeland’s claim that three versions of the track infringed his copyright.

According to the Fourth Circuit, 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”.

WIPR previously reported that the case was sent back to the district court. But now, it seems that Copeland may again fail to persuade the court that there has been infringement.

“After reviewing the factual record to date and in light of recently excluded expert testimony, the undersigned finds that there is no genuine issue of material fact as to whether defendants had timely access to plaintiffs’ music or whether the works in question are sufficiently similar to create a jury issue as to copying,” said Miller.

He added that despite Copeland’s arguments “that the ambiguity in the factual record allows for an inference of timely access”, his evidence has not created a dispute over whether the defendants’ had access to Copeland’s song before recording their own final demo.

According to Miller, the two songs “do not share sufficient common elements to be strikingly similar”.

“In fact, the songs are largely dissimilar, being related only in a few words of the lyric found in the chorus, or hook of both,” said Miller.

He explained that the songs do share some elements, and that the Fourth Circuit noted these similarities “could be apparent to the general audience” and may, in appropriate cases, be the basis for a finding of substantial similarity.

However, these similarities are not original, according to Miller, with the most obvious similarity between the two songs being the lyric in the chorus, “somebody to love”.

He added that an expert’s report “establishes that this short, commonly used phrase is generic, commonly used, and therefore not subject to copyright protection”.

In fact, he said, the phrase has been used as a song title in more than 130 licensed musical works.

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More on this story

Copyright
19 June 2015   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.
Copyright
9 January 2017   A US district judge has dismissed a long-running copyright dispute concerning music artists Justin Bieber and Usher, centring on their hit song “Somebody to Love”.