A United States federal judge has ruled that Sam Smith and Normani must face a jury trial over allegations that their 2019 single “Dancing With a Stranger” copied a 2015 track of the same name by Jordan Vincent.
Judge Wesley L. Hsu declined on Wednesday (Sept. 23) to dismiss the copyright case. Smith and Normani have argued that they never heard the earlier song and that any similarity is coincidental, a defense known as independent creation. Judge Hsu wrote that “the court finds the question of independent creation should be left for the jury to decide.”
Attorneys for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Case background#
Vincent, Christopher Miranda and Rosco Banlaoi filed the lawsuit in March 2022. They claimed the 2019 hit was “strikingly similar” to their own song “Dancing” and that it was “beyond any real doubt” that their work had been copied.
A year later, Judge Hsu dismissed the case after finding the two songs were not similar enough to constitute infringement. A federal appeals court revived the lawsuit last year, ruling that the songs were close enough for the claim to proceed.
After further litigation, the plaintiffs conceded there was no evidence that anyone involved in creating the 2019 song had heard the earlier track. That meant they were required to prove the songs were “strikingly similar,” or so close that copying is the only logical explanation. Smith and Normani argued the plaintiffs could not meet that standard and sought to have the case thrown out. Judge Hsu disagreed, writing that “the two songs should be presented to a jury.”
Sampling dispute#
Smith and Normani also argued the case had a separate “fatal defect”: the earlier song sampled two other tracks without licenses, so its creators did not hold copyrights to those portions. Judge Hsu ruled that Smith and Normani had failed to prove that argument.
“The samples are both difficult to identify or even hear within Plaintiff’s song due to their low volume,” the judge wrote. “As a result, the average audience could very well fail to recognize the appropriation of the sampled songs when listening to plaintiff’s song.”
Chart performance#
Released in 2019, “Dancing With a Stranger” peaked at No. 7 on the main US singles chart, making it one of Smith’s biggest hits and Normani’s highest-charting single. The song, from Smith’s third studio album Love Goes, spent 45 weeks on the chart.
The ruling denied a motion for summary judgment, which would have ended the lawsuit without a trial. Judge Hsu will now schedule a jury trial in the months ahead.
