Grammy-winning singer Dua Lipa alongside songwriters Clarence Coffee Jr., Sarah Hudson, and Stephen Kozmenuk plus Warner Records, had a win when a federal court in Los Angeles dropped a lawsuit that claimed Lipa had copied a Florida reggae group Artikal Sound System’s song in her popular track Levitating according to the order granting Lipa’s motion to dismiss.
The group had alleged that Lipa’s Levitating violated their copyright for the 2017 song ‘Live your life’.
Artikal Sound System could not prove that Levitating writers had seen or heard the song despite the group’s claims. Artikal Sound System said the song is on streaming services, was played during live performances in Florida, and that they sold several hundred compact discs, which wasn’t enough to convince Skyes.
The groups’ failure to specify how frequently they performed Live your life publicly during the specified period, where these performances took place and the size of the venues or audiences pushed the judge to rule against the idea that Artikal Sound System’s live performances of the song plausibly contributed to the saturation of markets in which defendants would have encountered it. Their vague allegations concerning CD sales are similarly deficient.
Artikal Sound System is based out of South Africa and was founded in 2012 by Chris Montague and Fabian Acuna. The group alleged they were owed profits from Levitating in Levitating in addition to damages and were demanding a jury trial in their 2022 court documents.
Lipa was facing double infringement lawsuits over her hit song. In addition to Artikal Sound System, songwriters L.Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer claimed last year she copied their 1979 song "Wiggle and Giggle All Night" and the 1980 song "Don Diablo," the latter of which they acquired the copyright for after filing a similar claim of infringement. The case remains ongoing and also names rapper DaBaby, who recorded on Lipa's "Levitating" remix, as a defendant.
