Dua Lipa has won the dismissal of a lawsuit that accused her of copying her hit single Levitating from two other songs.

The star was sued in 2022 by songwriters L Russell Brown and Sandy Linzer, who accused her of plagiarising their 1979 disco track Wiggle and Giggle All Night and 1980’s Don Diablo.

On Thursday, US Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled that the songs only had generic similarities, including non-copyrightable musical elements that had also previously been used by Mozart, Gilbert and Sullivan, and the Bee Gees in their song Stayin’ Alive.

It is the second time that Lipa has won a plagiarism case over Levitating, which was a global hit in 2020.

She was previously sued by Florida reggae band Artikal Sound System, who claimed Lipa ripped off the chorus for her song from their 2015 track Live Your Life.

Their case was dropped in 2023 after a judge ruled there was no evidence that Lipa and her co-writers had “access” to the earlier song – a key requirement in any copyright lawsuit.

However, she is still facing a third legal challenge over the song, from musician Bosko Kante – a featured artist on Levitating, who sang vocals through a talk box.

He sued in 2023, saying his contribution had been used on remixes of the song without permission.

Kante is seeking damages of at least $2m (£1.5m) plus interest, as well as profits from the remixes, which he estimated as being at least $20m (£15m).

Brown and Linzer’s case alleged that Lipa stole the opening melody of Levitating, where she sings: “If you wanna run away with me, I know a galaxy and I can take you for a ride.”

They called the melody and phrasing a “duplicate” of their own songs.

But Judge Failla wrote that the elements were too common to be protected by law.

“The court finds that a musical style, defined by plaintiffs as ‘pop with a disco feel,’ and a musical function, defined by plaintiffs to include ‘entertainment and dancing,’ cannot possibly be protectable,” the judge wrote.

“To hold otherwise would be to completely foreclose the further development of music in that genre or for that purpose.”

By coincidence, the ruling came on the fifth anniversary of Levitating’s release, initially as an album track on Lipa’s award-winning album Future Nostalgia.

In a statement to music industry publication Billboard, lawyers for Brown and Linzer said they “respectfully disagreed” with the decision and would file an appeal.

The BBC has contacted Dua Lipa for a response.

(BBC News)

Popular YouTube channel – ‘Wild Cookbook’ has become the first Sri Lankan channel to surpass 10 million subscribers.

Accordingly, it has also become the first YouTube channel to bag YouTube”s prestigious Diamond Play button.

Launching the channel in 2020, Sri Lankan chef and content creator – Charith N. Silva has captivated his audiences through his unique cooking videos, amassing over 4 billion views across 600+ videos since.

Announcing his milestone on social media, Mr. Silva has expressed his love and gratitude and has been flooded by felicitations from his massive fanbase.

Acclaimed author Sir Salman Rushdie is set to release his first work of fiction in nearly three years, following a stabbing that left him blind in one eye in 2022.

The Eleventh Hour will consist of a collection of stories from around the world, set across India, England and the US.

The work will be published by Vintage, part of Penguin Random House, on 4 November – more than three years after he was stabbed while on stage by an assailant who was convicted last month of attempted murder and assault.

“Salman Rushdie’s new fiction moves between the places he has grown up in, inhabited, explored, and left,” the publisher said.

According to Penguin Random House, the book depicts the story of “two quarrelsome old men in Chennai, India, who experience private tragedy against the backdrop of national calamity”.

For readers familiar with Sir Salman’s Midnight’s Children, for which he won the Booker Prize, this upcoming work revisits the Bombay neighbourhood of that book, where “a magical musician is unhappily married to a multibillionaire”.

Sir Salman said the book is made up of three novellas – short stories – all of which were written in the last 12 months.

The stories explore themes and places present in his mind, the author added, highlighting “mortality, Bombay, farewells, England (especially Cambridge), anger, peace, America, and Goya and Kafka and Bosch”.

News of his latest work comes a year after Sir Salman released an autobiographical account of what happened when he was stabbed on stage during an event at the Chautauqua Institution.

Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder explored Sir Salman’s account of the attack, when he was stabbed more than a dozen times by Hadi Matar, 27.

As well as vision loss in one eye, the attack in August 2022 left Sir Salman with other severe injuries, including damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.

In February, Matar was found guilty of his attempted murder and assault and now faces a sentence of more than 30 years in prison.

Sir Salman testified during the trial. Recalling the incident, he said he was struck by the assailant’s eyes, “which were dark and seemed very ferocious”.

He initially thought he had been punched, before realising he had been stabbed.

The 77-year-old previously spent several years in hiding after the 1988 publication of The Satanic Verses – a fictional story inspired by the life of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad – triggered threats against his life.

The surrealist, post-modern novel sparked outrage among some Muslims, who considered its content to be blasphemous – insulting to a religion or god – and was banned in some countries.

A year after the book’s release, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for Sir Salman’s execution. He offered a $3m (£2.5m) reward in a fatwa – a legal decree issued by an Islamic religious leader.

The British-Indian author has released as many as 16 novels, including Midnight’s Children, for which he won the Booker Prize.

(BBC News)