Lawsuit over Dua Lipa's Levitating remixes dismissed

A copyright lawsuit over remixes of Dua Lipa's song Levitating has been dismissed. Talkbox artist Bosko Kante, Dua Lipa, Stephen Kozmeniuk and Warner Records agreed to end the case in a joint filing in federal court in Los Angeles on 9 November, according to Music Business Worldwide.

The dismissal was made "with prejudice", a legal phrase meaning the case is closed for good. Kante cannot bring the same claims again. Each side will pay its own costs and legal fees. The two-page filing gives no financial terms, and it does not say whether a settlement was reached.

Kante filed the lawsuit in July 2023. He is a co-founder of ElectroSpit, which makes a wearable talkbox, a device that carries an instrument's sound through a tube into the performer's mouth, so the sound can be shaped into something close to speech.

He alleged that a talkbox performance he recorded for Levitating was used without permission on three remixes. Those were The Blessed Madonna version featuring Madonna and Missy Elliott, the version featuring DaBaby, and a remix made for the American Music Awards. These were allegations, and the court never ruled on them.

The original complaint sought at least $2 million in damages. It also sought profits from the remixes, which it estimated at more than $20 million. Kante's complaint said no written work-for-hire agreement had been signed. A work-for-hire arrangement is one in which work made for someone else belongs to that person from the start. He claimed instead that an oral deal limited the use of his work to the original song, in return for $1,500, a share of neighbouring rights and credit. Neighbouring rights are payments to performers and recording owners when recordings are broadcast or played in public.

Cases like this often turn on paperwork as much as on sound. The central question was what a spoken arrangement, made years earlier, was meant to cover, and what it was worth.