{"id":618732,"date":"2026-10-02T19:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T19:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618732\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T19:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T19:20:09","slug":"olivia-dean-accused-of-plagiarism-on-her-ive-seen-it-track-olivia-dean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618732\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Dean accused of plagiarism on her I\u2019ve Seen It track | Olivia Dean"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olivia Dean<\/a> has been accused of plagiarizing the Bill Withers<\/a> classic Just the Two of Us.<\/p>\n

The owners of Withers\u2019 back catalogue aimed that allegation at his fellow Grammy winner in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed on Thursday in US federal court in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Mattie Music Group contended that Dean\u2019s track I\u2019ve Seen It<\/a> stole \u201csubstantial\u201d aspects of Withers\u2019 1981 collaboration with Grover Washington Jr, which<\/a> ascended to No 2 on Billboard\u2019s Hot 100 before enjoying a comeback much more recently on the TikTok social media platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn early August 2026, upon listening several times to I\u2019ve Seen It, representatives of plaintiff came to what they considered to be the obvious and inescapable conclusion that I\u2019ve Seen It copied in large and significant part [Just the Two of Us], including without limitation repeated copying of the distinctively protectable melody, and clearly infringed plaintiff\u2019s copyrights in and to the original work,\u201d Mattie\u2019s lawsuit said.<\/p>\n

Mattie\u2019s lawsuit recounted how the group hired musicologist Alexander Stewart to analyze I\u2019ve Seen It and compare it to Just the Two of Us. Stewart \u201cconcluded that the works contain substantial similarities in protectable musical expression\u201d, according to the plaintiff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number, character, and arrangement of the shared musical features are so striking that they support an inference that the similarities did not result from coincidence, independent creation or reliance on common musical elements,\u201d Mattie\u2019s lawsuit continued.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit does not list as defendants Dean or her I\u2019ve Seen It collaborators, Bastian Langbaek and Max Wolfgang, but alleges the three \u201chad a reasonable opportunity to encounter the original work before creating I\u2019ve Seen It\u201d, the last track on Dean\u2019s 2025 album The Art of Loving.<\/p>\n

Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Group\u2019s Capitol Records \u2013 Dean\u2019s publisher and record label, respectively \u2013 were named as defendants by Mattie. So was Kobalt Music Publishing America, Wolfgang\u2019s publisher.<\/p>\n

Mattie\u2019s lawsuit added the plaintiff provided \u201cwritten notice to each defendant identifying the registration, the accused composition and the material musical similarities\u201d on 17 August. But, the lawsuit said, \u201cdefendants continued reproducing, distributing, licensing, publicly performing and commercially exploiting\u201d I\u2019ve Seen It.<\/p>\n

Beside damages, the lawsuit said it seeks an injunction that permanently would \u201crestrain further ongoing acts of copyright infringement by [the] defendants\u201d.<\/p>\n

Representatives for Dean, Capitol Records and Kobalt did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Guardian on Friday. Billboard reported<\/a> that a Kobalt representative declined to comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Dean, 27, won the Grammy award for best new artist in February. The London native has also won four Brit awards, including for album of the year with The Art of Loving. Furthermore, on 31 July, Dean and Sam Fender\u2019s Rein Me In became<\/a> the longest-running No 1 single in UK history.<\/p>\n

Withers, meanwhile, was a three-time Grammy winner originally from Slab Fork, West Virginia. His and Washington\u2019s Just the Two of Us won the 1981 Grammy for best R&B song.<\/p>\n

Mattie Music Group administers Withers\u2019 estate after his death in Los Angeles at age 81 in March 2020. It is named after the crooner\u2019s late mother, Mattie, and run by his widow, Marcia Johnson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olivia Dean has been accused of plagiarizing the Bill Withers classic Just the Two of Us. The owners…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-618732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}