{"id":2049,"date":"2018-10-09T15:09:40","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T19:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/?p=2049"},"modified":"2023-07-25T11:44:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:44:55","slug":"copyright-suit-against-gwen-stefani-fails-to-spark-the-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/jsel\/2018\/10\/copyright-suit-against-gwen-stefani-fails-to-spark-the-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Copyright Suit Against Gwen Stefani Fails to \u201cSpark the Fire\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The United States District Court for the Central District of California has granted summary judgment in a copyright case<\/a> stemming from singer Gwen Stefani\u2019s 2014 hit song \u201cSpark the Fire.\u201d The suit was brought by Stefani\u2019s former hairdresser Richard Morrill. He alleged that he played Stefani a song called \u201cWho\u2019s Got My Lightah\u201d while working on her hair in the late \u201890s and that she lifted key elements from the song when recording \u201cSpark the Fire\u201d nearly two decades later, including distinctive word pronunciations and rhyme patterns.<\/p>\n

In her order<\/a> granting Stefani\u2019s motion for summary judgment, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ruled that the songs were not substantially similar. Gee found that the pattern of pronouncing words ending in \u2013er as if they had ended in \u2013ah (such as \u2018light-ah\u2019 and \u2018fi-ah\u2019) did not originate with Morrill, but rather \u201cis a common practice in African American Vernacular English.\u201d The judge also rejected Morrill\u2019s claim that rhyming light-ah and fi-ah at the end of a line was sufficiently original to be given copyright protections. As Gee observes, \u201cthe last word in the line of a song often rhymes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This lawsuit is the latest example of what Pitchfork describes<\/a> as a \u201cnew frontier for litigiousness\u201d in popular music. The past few years have seen other famous performers like Sam Smith, Robin Thicke, Taylor Swift, and Bruno Mars litigating copyright infringement claims. This trend raises the concern that copyright law may have a chilling effect on the very creative efforts it intends to foster. As entertainment lawyer Mattias Eng observes, \u201cWhenever there is a [big enough] hit\u2026it is virtually guaranteed that there will be some sort of claim\u2026They run the gamut, from \u2018ridiculous\u2019 to \u2018cause for concern.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Image: Lori Shaull<\/a>, Gwen Stefani, No Doubt<\/a>, CC BY-SA 2.0<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alex Van Dyke is an Entertainment Highlight Contributor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and a current first year student at Harvard Law School (Class of 2021).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States District Court for the Central District of California has granted summary judgment in a copyright case stemming from singer Gwen Stefani\u2019s 2014 hit song \u201cSpark the Fire.\u201d The suit was brought by Stefani\u2019s former hairdresser Richard Morrill. He alleged that he played Stefani a song called \u201cWho\u2019s Got My Lightah\u201d while working 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