Jason Derulo has won a copyright trial over the writing and production credits on his 2020 chart-topper, Savage Love.
A jury in Los Angeles handed down a verdict on Thursday rejecting the claims brought by session musician Matthew Spatola against Derulo and Columbia Records, Billboard reports.
As a consequence, Spatola won’t recover any royalties from Savage Love, a viral TikTok hit from August 2020 that later hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with a remix featuring BTS.
Spatola, who played guitar and bass on the track, argued during that he also had a hand in crafting the instrumentals and was thus entitled to writing and production splits.
Derulo denied this, testifying in court that Spatola just played what he was told and “created absolutely nothing” for the song.
Spatola was paid a $2,000 (£1480) fee for two studio sessions in April 2020, but he and the Project Icon star did not sign a ‘work-for-hire’ agreement, which would have confirmed that the musician did not have authorship rights even if he contributed to the song. All that was on record was a text from Derulo asking, “1K good each day?”
The case has been in the court system for three years. Jurors ultimately sided with Derulo after deliberating for just over a day.
