Demi Lovato is currently being sued by Sleigh Bells for sampling one of the band's songs without their permission, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Last year, Sleigh Bells took to Twitter to point out that Lovato's single "Stars" seems to sample their own song "Infinity Guitars," which appears on the band's debut album.
"Stars" producers Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub released an official statement to address the band's tweet and told Rolling Stone that they did not use any samples while creating the song, claiming that Lovato wasn't actually involved with the production and that "she only wrote top line."
A rep for Sleigh Bells responded to Falk and Yacoub, saying: "I can confirm that the band feels their music has been sampled without proper clearance and are seeking all available remedies with Island Records." And now, Lovato, UMG Recordings, Falk, and Yacoub are being sued.
According to the lawsuit, the two songs feature "virtually identical content" and "transcend the realm of coincidence." The complaint explains that a "comparison of the two songs reveals that, at the very least, the combination of the hand claps and bass drum, structured as 3 quarter beats and a rest, with the bass drum providing a counter-rhythm to the hand claps, is at least substantially similar in both works.
"This infringing material repeats throughout the Defendants’ song."
This year has seen many similar cases, whether artists are using uncleared samples or blatantly lifting parts of another song: 50 Cent and Dr. Dre are being sued over the beat for "P.I.M.P." by producer Brandon Parrott; Ed Sheeran is being accused of "borrowing" from Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On"; Kendrick Lamar is being sued for using an uncleared sample of a Bill Withers song; and even Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" has been accused of plagiarism.
Read Sleigh Bell's full complaint here, and see if you can hear the similarities between the two songs below.
