Dua Lipa Faces Another Lawsuit over 'Levitating,'Producer Says Remixes Feature Unlicensed 'Talk Box' Sample: Report
This marks the third copyright lawsuit for the pop star's hit
Dua Lipa and Warner Music have reportedly been hit with a third lawsuit over the singer's smash hit "Levitating."
The latest suit, filed on Monday, July 31, comes from music producer Bosko Kante who alleges the pop star was never given permission to use his "talk box" recording in her remixes of "Levitating," per Billboard.
Kante claims the "talk box" track was created for the original rendition of "Levitating," but the star and label were not allowed to use it in remixes, including the "Da Baby" version.
In a lawsuit filed Monday (July 31) in federal court, Bosko Kante says he created a so-called talk box track for use in Lipa’s original version of the song, but that the creators of “Levitating” allegedly had no right to use it in subsequent remixes, like the extremely popular rendition featuring DaBaby.
“Plaintiff made numerous attempts to resolve this matter short of litigation, but such efforts were unsuccessful, due to Defendants’ unwillingness to cooperate or accept responsibility for this blatant infringement of Plaintiff’s copyrights,” Kante’s lawyers alleged in the lawsuit.
Kante, who has crafted talk box performances for Kanye West and Big Boi, is the co-founder and CEO of the ElectroSpit talkbox, which is a digital version of the talk box — a device that allows artists to modify the sound of a musical instrument through a person's mouth.
The plaintiff claims he was approached by Stephen Kozmeniuk, one of producers of “Levitating,” in 2014 about making a talk box performance that would be a part of the original release of "Levitating. After he did, Kante alleges he and Kozmeniuk had a verbal agreement that his performance could be used in “Levitating.”
However, Kante says that agreement didn't explicitly extend to remixes beyond the original version, so Lipa and Warner Music didn’t have permission to use it for the remixes featuring The Blessed Madonna with Madonna and Missy Elliott or with Da Baby.
“All three remixes sampled and incorporated a greater amount of plaintiff’s work than that used in the original version,” Kante’s lawyers wrote. “Defendants did not seek or receive any authorization or permission to use the composition or sound recording of plaintiff’s work from plaintiff.”
Reps for Dua Lipa and Warner Music Group did not immediately return a request for comment.
"Levitating," featured on the singer's second studio album Future Nostalgia, was released in 2020 and spent 77 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Last month, the "New Rules" singer and Warner Records won the dismissal of a copyright case involving "Levitating" that came from the reggae band Artikal Sound System.
Related: Dua Lipa Hit with Second Copyright Infringement Suit Over Hit Song 'Levitating'
The band filed the lawsuit against the pop star in March of last year and claimed that her 2020 song borrowed its hook from their 2017 song. However, the group failed to argue that the writers of "Levitating" had "access" to the song "Live Your Life" they alleged she copied, per Reuters and Billboard.
In March 2022, she was also hit with a second copyright infringement lawsuit over the song by a pair of songwriters who alleged that "Levitating" is "substantially similar" to the 1979 Cory Daye song "Wiggle and Giggle All Night," written by L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer.
Lawyers for Brown and Linzer claim that the song's "signature melody…is a duplicate" of the opening melody of "Wiggle and Giggle All Night" and the 1980 Miguel Bosé song "Don Diablo," to which they also own the copyright, according to the complaint, which was obtained by PEOPLE.
"The notes move in the same direction with evenly matched intervals or 'steps,' and almost identical rhythms," the complaint said, adding that the opening melody is repeated six times in "Levitating," and three times in a remix featuring DaBaby. A ruling has not been made for this case.
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.
