A federal appeals court has rejected a copyright lawsuit over Marshmello’s 2018 smash hit “Happier,” ruling that the DJ’s accuser signed away any rights to his earlier song.
An electronic music producer named Arty claimed that “Happier” borrowed elements from his 2014 remix of OneRepublic’s “I Lived,” but a federal judge tossed out the case last year.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that decision, ruling Arty created the remix under a deal with Interscope that expressly stated that he would own no copyright to the remix — including the so-called drop melody he claimed had been copied by Marshmello.
“Without a copyright interest in the drop melody, [Arty] cannot bring a claim for copyright infringement against Marshmello,” the Ninth Circuit wrote in its ruling.
Arty, whose legal name is Artem Stoliarov, sued in 2019 over “Happier,” a collaboration between Marshmello and the British band Bastille that peaked at No. 2 in early 2019 and ended up at No. 33 on the Hot 100 Decade-End charts for the 2010s.
Filed by Richard Busch, the same attorney who sued Robin Thicke and Pharrell over “Blurred Lines,” the lawsuit claimed that Marshmello lifted a synthesizer melody Arty had added to “I Lived” for the remix.
The problem, according to the Ninth Circuit, is that Arty created his remix under a deal with Interscope in which he agreed that he was not entitled “to any ownership or financial interest in the underlying musical composition.”
Ahead of Friday’s ruling, Arty urged the appeals court to rule that the contract only barred him from claiming ownership over OneRepublic’s original song. He pointed to industry experts who testified that a remix artist wouldn’t typically agree to sign away their contributions to an earlier song.
But the appeals court rejected that argument, saying he had failed to provide strong enough evidence to overturn the earlier decision.
In a statement to Billboard on Friday, Marshmello’s lead attorney, Robert A. Jacobs of the law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips, said: “We are pleased with the Ninth Circuit’s well-reasoned decision, and grateful that the court agreed that Arty did not have the right to bring the lawsuit in the first place.”
An attorney for Arty did not return requests for comment. Neither OneRepublic nor Interscope, a unit of Universal Music Group, were involved in the case.