¨That part sounds familiar.¨

That’s all it takes for someone to be sued thousands of dollars for allegedly stealing someone’s work… just a six-second part of the song you worked on for weeks, and now you’re in court with someone you didn’t know existed, fighting about a song that was allegedly plagiarized. All that work down the drain.

We were all taught the dangers of plagiarism and copyright laws, but what happens when you are put into that situation? What if your work wasn’t intentionally plagiarized?

A recent case was reported involving R&B singer, The Weeknd, sprung out about his song, A Lonely Night, from his 2016 album titled Starboy. A group of British musicians are taking legal action against The Weeknd (real name Abel Tesfaye). Brian Clover, a member of the British trio, says he heard it in a store and immediately noticed the similarities. The trio believe it was stolen from their song, I Need To Love, which was composed in 2004

While the Trio tries to sue The Weeknd, a former grammy winner and an A-List celebrity, for copying a part of their song, it has been brought to attention that the band was trying to sell that song. “I Need To Love” ended up not bringing in any buyers so the song´s rights were given back to the group. Tesfaye´s legal team has denied any accusations of the song, and states that it was not plagiarized.

Here are the two songs compared. Listen to them if you’d like and see for yourself. Do you think it’s worth it to bring to court?

A Lonely Night, The Weeknd (Starboy 2016)^

I Need to Love, William Smith, Brian Clover, and Scott McCulloch^