Sam Smith and Normani hit back against Dancing With A Stranger song-theft lawsuit

completemusicupdate.com:

The lawsuit that accused Sam Smith and Normani of ripping off their 2019 hit ‘Dancing With A Stranger’ from an earlier song called ‘Dancing With Strangers’ is “rambling”, “repetitive” and contradicts itself.

Or so say lawyers representing Smith and Normani.They were both sued earlier this year over the allegations they’d ripped off that earlier work, which was written in 2015 by artist Jordan Vincent and producer Christopher Miranda.On top of having nearly the same title and a very similar accompanying promo video to the earlier song, the lawsuit claimed, Smith and Normani’s ‘Dancing With A Stranger’ had the same “hook, chorus, lyrics, and musical composition” to that written by Vincent and Miranda.“It is beyond any real doubt that Smith, Normani and the other defendants copied plaintiff’s work”, the lawsuit claimed. “The protected expression in both the infringing song and plaintiff’s pre-existing work is nearly identical and is strikingly similar”.But not so, say Smith and Normani’s lawyers in a new court filing this week.

Yes the two songs have similar titles, but they are not identical, and anyway song titles aren’t protected by copyright.And as for the actual music, the new filing argues, the plaintiff’s own expert report – which is being used to back up that “beyond any real doubt” claim – actually admits that there are plenty of differences between the two songs.“Even as transcribed by plaintiff’s expert, only the first and sixth notes are the same”, the Smith/Normani side say.