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Bieber and Usher song copy claim re-instated by appeals court

By | Published on Friday 19 June 2015

Justin Bieber

An appeals court in the US has re-instated the previously reported lawsuit against Justin Bieber and Usher which claimed that they ripped of a song by two other songwriters on their track ‘Somebody To Love’. The case was previously dismissed last year when a judge ruled that the two songs in question were significantly different.

Devin Copeland and Maerio Overton claimed in 2013 that ‘Somebody To Love’ features various lyrical and stylistic similarities to a song they wrote with the same title, which Copeland released under the name De Rico in 2008.

They say that the album upon which the De Rico song features was given to Usher through his mother, who later said the Usher had listened to it and was considering Copeland as a support act on tour. Usher later put a demo version of him singing ‘Somebody To Love’ on YouTube, before Bieber went on to record it in for his 2010 album ‘My World 2.0’.

Copeland and Overton say that Usher’s song features the same chords, time signature and vocal hook as theirs, though last year a judge said that a member of the public would not be likely to note any significant similarity between the two.

However, the case, in which Copeland and Overton are seeking $10 million in damages, will now be reconsidered, after the appeals court conceded that there were similarities between the choruses of the two songs that a jury may feel were significant enough to rule in their favour.



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