Sam Smith Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Dancing With a Stranger’ Revived By Appeals Court

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit claiming Sam Smith and Normani stole key elements of their 2019 hit “Dancing With a Stranger” from an earlier track, ruling that the case was tossed out too soon and should have been decided by a jury trial.

The decision, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, reversed a 2023 ruling by a lower judge that had dismissed the case – a copyright lawsuit claiming Smith and Normani ripped off a little-known earlier song called “Dancing with Strangers.”

At the time, the trial judge said the two songs were simply not similar enough to constitute copyright infringement. But in a ruling Tuesday, the appeals court said a jury of their peers might have decided the case differently if they’d been given the chance.

A “reasonable jury” could potentially decide that the hooks of the two tracks share the same combination of musical elements “in substantial amounts,” the appeals court wrote, including lyrics, “metric placement” and the same “melodic contour.”

Though the two songs also have key differences, the appeals court said a trial judge cannot simply pick a winner if there are conflicting reports from musical experts: “Under that approach, expert testimony would not be required at all.”

The ruling is a loss for Smith and Normani, but is also a worrying decision for any artist hit with a song-theft copyright lawsuit. If such cases must be litigated all the way to trial to be decided, they become dramatically more expensive for defendants, and give accusers more leverage to secure settlements from artists wary of protracted litigation.

Released in 2019, “Dancing with a Stranger” peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100 chart, making it one of Smith’s biggest hits and Normani’s peak spot on the chart. The song, released on Smith’s third studio album Love Goes, ultimately spent 45 weeks on the chart.

In March 2022, the two artists were sued over the track by songwriters Jordan Vincent, Christopher Miranda and Rosco Banlaoi, who claimed that the 2019 hit song was “strikingly similar” to their own “Dancing” — and that it was “beyond any real doubt” that their song had been copied.

A year later, the case was dismissed by Judge Wesley L. Hsu, who ruled that the two songs were not “substantially similar” – the legal threshold for proving copyright infringement. He granted Smith and Normani summary judgment, meaning he ended the case without a trial because he believed a jury could not validly side with the plaintiffs.

But in Tuesday’s decision, the Ninth Circuit overturned that ruling, saying that so long as there is “sufficient disagreement” among the musicologists retained by each side, then case “must be submitted” to a jury.

The ruling will send the case back to Judge Hsu for more litigation, including a potential jury trial.