Usher, Justin Bieber, and Sony/ATV Musical Publishing LLC are winners in a $10 million lawsuit, which accused the superstars of illegally copying parts of their song “Somebody to Love” from a record of the same name by two Virginia songwriters.
On Thursday (Jan. 5), Federal U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright dismissed the $10 million copyright lawsuit, citing Devin Copeland and his cousin Mareio Overton failed to show proof that Bieber and Usher had access to their 2008 song before creating their own work in early 2010.
In their lawsuit, Copeland and Overton claimed that they provided the song, which they recorded in 2008, to Usher’s mother and former manager Jonetta Patton in 2009, a year before Bieber recorded the track based off an Usher demo.
The suit was dismissed with prejudice, so Copeland and Overton can never sue again.
Usher and Bieber maintained that their song was based on a November 2009 version by songwriter Heather Bright and production trio, The Stereotypes.
Bieber received songwriting credit on “Somebody to Love,” which peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.
[Rueters]
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