Two songs, same title, written three years apart. That's the setup in a copyright case over "Dancing With a Stranger," the 2019 hit performed by Sam Smith and Normani.
The plaintiff is Sound and Color, LLC, owned by songwriter Jordan Vincent and the production duo SKX. According to the court, they wrote their own "Dancing with a Stranger" in early 2015. Smith, James Napier and the producers known as Stargate wrote theirs on August 7, 2018. Normani sang on the release but, the court notes, didn't write it.
Most music copyright cases have two halves: did the defendant hear your song, and do the songs sound too alike? Here the plaintiff dropped the first half entirely. It withdrew "every access theory it advanced," including wide dissemination. On September 22, Judge Wesley Hsu still denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment. The case can go to a jury on similarity alone. No trial date was on the docket when I checked, and damages discovery had been on hold pending this ruling.
Takeaway #1: Striking similarity, when you can't prove they heard it
FROM THE ORDER
"To be 'striking,' similarities must appear in a unique or complex context such that 'it is virtually impossible that the two works could have been independently created.'"
What it means for you. Copying usually gets proven with circumstantial evidence. You show "access," meaning a real chance the other side heard your work, plus similarity. Without access, there's a back door. If two works are "strikingly similar," a jury can infer copying anyway.
The court called that "a high bar." It's meant to be. Coincidences happen, especially in pop, where everyone draws from the same well of chords and phrases.
So why did this one survive? The plaintiff's musicologist described both hooks as starting on "dan-" and descending in eighth notes to "stran-," held for a beat before resolving on "-ger." He found no prior song anywhere near as close. The court said that expert testimony raised a genuine factual dispute, and that whether the defendants' evidence of independent creation wins "should be left for the jury to decide."
That's not a finding that anyone copied. The defendants dispute the claim and offered declarations and expert reports on how they wrote their song. It's a finding that a jury, not a judge, gets to weigh it.
Your move. Songwriters, date-stamp your work. Voice memos and session files with real timestamps are cheap insurance. If you're ever accused, proof of how and when you wrote a song is your best answer to "too similar to be a coincidence."
Takeaway #2: Unlicensed samples didn't sink the plaintiff's copyright
FROM THE ORDER
"The act of sampling copyrighted works itself, even without authorization, does not necessarily strip the end product of copyright protection."
What it means for you. Here's the plot twist. According to the order, the plaintiff's own song contains samples it never cleared: a vocal bit from "The Ha Dance" by Masters at Work and two measures of Lyn Collins's "Think (About It)," playing through nearly the whole track. The defendants argued that meant the plaintiff's song couldn't be protected.
The court disagreed, at least for now. Copying only matters legally if it's substantial. The judge listened to all three tracks and found that the samples sit low in the mix, "difficult to identify or even hear." A jury could find them de minimis, which the Ninth Circuit describes this way: "a use is de minimis only if the average audience would not recognize the appropriation."
Don't read this as permission. It's a ruling that one defense didn't win on summary judgment, not a safe harbor for uncleared samples. The owners of the sampled songs weren't part of this fight. The devil is in the details, and a quiet sample is still a sample.
Your move. Clear your samples before release, even the ones buried in the mix. If you're the one suing, expect the other side to audit your track for anything you didn't clear.
Sample wording (our illustration): "Artist represents that every sample embodied in the Master has been licensed in writing by the owners of both the sampled composition and the sampled recording."
And always remember, don't sign it till you read it, my friends.
General information, not legal advice. Reading this doesn't create an attorney-client relationship. Talk to your own lawyer about any copyright claim.
