Sam Smith and Normani’s Dancing With A Stranger copyright case heads to trial

A lawsuit claiming Sam Smith and Normani’s multi-platinum 2019 dance hit Dancing With A Stranger breaches copyright is heading to trial.

A federal judge in Los Angeles rejected the musical duo’s latest bid to dismiss the case, which alleges the pair stole its hook from a 2015 song titled Dancing With Strangers.

In the ruling obtained by Rolling Stone, US District Judge Wesley L Hsu found that “plaintiffs have sufficiently introduced an issue of material fact regarding striking similarity and independent creation which precludes a finding of no copyright infringement on summary judgment”.

The long-running lawsuit was filed four years ago. It was dismissed the following year, and later revived on appeal. In July, lawyers for Smith and Normani asked the court to throw out the case again, arguing that experts for the plaintiff songwriters Jordan Vincent, Christopher Miranda and Rosco Banlao had failed to show the required “striking similarity”.

The judge disagreed and found that the defendants’ claims that they created their 2019 song independently, without any access to the plaintiffs’ song, didn’t matter at this stage of the case.

The case is being brought by three songwriters who claim Sam Smith and other defendants stole Dancing With A Stranger from Sound and Colour, the songwriting and production company behind Vincent’s 2015 song.

“We look forward to our day in court,” their lawyer told Rolling Stone.