Dua Lipa Faces Second Lawsuit Over Hit Song “Levitating”

Earlier this month, pop star Dua Lipa learned that she was facing a lawsuit over copyright infringement for her 2020 song “Levitating.”

Now, the artist is facing a second lawsuit over the track—this time from a different group of songwriters.

The new second suit claims that Lipa took material from a couple of older disco tracks.

According to multiple sources, a complaint was filed on Friday (March 4) in New York City federal court by songwriters L. Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, who are accusing Lipa of biting their 1979 song “Wiggle and Giggle All Night,” and the 1980 track, “Don Diablo.”

The two claim that the opening melody to “Levitating” is a “duplicate” of theirs in the songs.

Lawyers for Brown and Linzer say in the complaint: “Defendants have levitated away plaintiffs’ intellectual property. Plaintiffs bring suit so that defendants cannot wiggle out of their willful infringement.”

The attorneys also point to past interviews in which Lipa “admitted that she deliberately emulated prior eras” and “took inspiration” from the past music to create a “retro” vibe.

The suit claims, “In seeking nostalgic inspiration, defendants copied plaintiffs’ creation without attribution.”

As with the first suit Lipa is facing, the second lawsuit also names Warner Music Group as defendants, along with controversial rapper DaBaby, who is featured on the song, and others.

Brown and Linser’s attorneys wrote, “The signature melody is the most listened to and recognizable part of the infringing works and plays a crucial role in their popularity. Because video creators frequently truncate the already brief snippets of sound on TikTok, the signature melody often comprises fifty percent or more of these viral videos.”

Lipa has not commented on the lawsuits, as of yet.

In the first lawsuit, the band Artikal Sound System claims that it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.”

Lipa released her latest album, Future Nostalgia, in 2020 and has previously said that she didn’t think “Levitating,” which features DaBaby, would become such a major hit. The song was popular on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram during the pandemic.

Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images