What Next - Dua Lipa’s Copyright Problem
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2022
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
After more than 70 weeks on the Billboard U.S. Hot 100, Dua Lipa and her song “Levitating” have run into trouble: two separate copyright complaints claiming the pop star ripped off other artists in writing her hit. These aren’t the first lawsuits to test the boundaries of what counts as plagiarism in the musical realm; and if either suit succeeds, it will have far-reaching consequences for creativity in the industry.
Guest: Jeremy Orosz, associate professor of music theory at the University of Memphis.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and |
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| 0:20.9 | inside and outside of your company. Slack, where the future works. Get started at |
| 0:26.9 | Slack.com slash DHQ. |
| 0:30.9 | The British singer, Duolipa, has never been secretive about her songwriting. She's recorded |
| 0:39.7 | interviews where she goes deep on her influences, analyzes her music stem by stem. Her latest |
| 0:46.0 | album, she said the vibe was driven by a close-knit team. They opened up their recording |
| 0:52.1 | session by playing around with some tarot cards, and they powered through it all on a donut-fueled |
| 0:57.1 | sugar high. This recording session produced a mega hit, which if you have not been living |
| 1:04.0 | under a rock for the last year, you've definitely heard. |
| 1:07.4 | This song, Levitating. It is the most streamed song of 2021. I called up a self-described |
| 1:20.5 | Duolipa expert to talk to me about it. |
| 1:24.5 | Guilty is charged, I suppose. Jeremy Oros teaches music theory at the University of Memphis. |
| 1:30.3 | He's happy to admit he is a straight-up fan of Duo. |
| 1:34.1 | She has the most honest album name that maybe I've ever heard, Future in Estolja. I've never |
| 1:39.3 | heard one, so honest and transparent, because there is a lot of nostalgia for music of the |
| 1:44.9 | 70s through 90s. I wouldn't say it's derivative of that, but it certainly is inspired by |
| 1:50.5 | a lot of the great hits of those decades. |
| 1:53.9 | Is that kind of nostalgia a little dangerous right now? |
| 1:57.3 | Oh, yes, absolutely. |
... |
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