Sleigh Bells File Lawsuit Against Demi Lovato

The noise-pop duo Sleigh Bells are suing Demi Lovato for sampling two of their songs without permission. She is accused of sampling “Infinity Guitars” and “Riot Rhythm” on her bonus track “Stars” that came out last year on Confident. Sleigh Bells, made up of Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller, filed a lawsuit against Lovato, UMG Recordings, and producers Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub.

In the complaint, the band states their songs share a striking similarity with Lovato’s song based on the specific individual parts such as near-identical structure, “the combination of the hand claps and bass drum,” and the “bass drum providing a counter-rhythm to the hand claps.” Giving Lovato the benefit of the doubt, it’s believable that the pop singer’s producers simply made a very similar backing track—albeit not very original.

However, the plaintiffs go on to say that, “Signal decay and other sonic signatures in each of the songs are comprised of and contain virtually identical content.” Taken at face value, that claim certainly makes the case against Lovato seem plausible beyond a reasonable doubt.

Lovato’s producers have yet to respond to the lawsuit, but they released a statement in November saying that no samples were used in the song and that the singer herself had no hand in its production.

Inevitably the artists’ lawyers will decide, but for now you can draw your own conclusions. You can compare the two songs below.