Nancy Dillon
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Olivia Dean and Bill Withers Joseph Okpako/Getty Images; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images A new lawsuit alleges the Olivia Dean song “I’ve Seen It,” from her critically acclaimed album The Art of Loving, copies an unmistakable melody from the Bill Withers hit “Just the Two of Us.”
Filed in federal court in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling Stone, the new complaint from the publisher behind Withers’ catalog says the similarities between Dean’s song and the 1981 Grammy-winning R&B classic are “obvious and inescapable.” The publisher says a musicologist who reviewed the songs found “substantial similarities” and repeated copying of a “distinctively protectable melody.”
“The number, character, and arrangement of the shared musical features are so striking that they support an inference that the similarities did not result from coincidence, independent creation, or reliance on common musical elements,” the new lawsuit states.
The seven-page copyright infringement complaint names Capitol Records, Universal Music Group, and Dean’s publishing companies as the defendants. It does not seek damages from Dean or her co-writers on the song, Bastian Langebaek and Max Wolfgang.
Representatives for UMG, which owns Capitol Records, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attempts to reach a spokesperson for Dean were not immediately successful Thursday.
