Lana Del Rey Vs Radiohead Copyright Infringement Explained

American singer Lana Del Rey has confirmed that Radiohead is suing her over allegations that Get Free, the closing track from her most recent album ‘Lust for Life’, is a copy of their breakthrough single ‘Creep’.

The weekend saw rumours spread over the legal action taking place until it was confirmed on twitter by the singer herself: “It’s true about the lawsuit.”

Musician Owen Pallett noted in his own twitter post the potential that it’s not simply a matter of “Radiohead sitting around feeling annoyed about a stolen chord progression, this just might be their lawyers being lawyers.”

Angela Jack, Associate, Barrister at Intellectual Property law firm EIP spoke to Lawyer Monthly about the lawsuit and its implications:

“It is not clear whether any legal proceedings would be (or have been) brought in the UK or in the USA. In the UK, to bring a successful case for copyright infringement, Radiohead would need to show both that Get Free is derived from Creep and that it is similar to it – this would require expert evidence on chord progression and similarity of tune, although on first listening it seems unlikely that they will have any difficulty on this second point.”

She continued: “On the first point, it is sufficient for copyright infringement even if the work is a subconscious derivation and the infringer does not consciously realise that they are copying the work. Given this low threshold and how well known ‘Creep’ is, I am not surprised that Lana Del Rey has already offered to pay Radiohead some of the royalties from ‘Get Free’.”

This comes after, in Del Rey’s own words: “I offered up to 40 over the last few months but they will only accept 100. Their lawyers have been relentless, so we will deal with it in court.”

Radiohead has experience on the other side of the fence in the past, when The Hollies successfully filed for legal action over similarities between ‘Creep’ and their track, ‘The Air That I Breathe’, released 1974. This lead to Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood being listed as co-writers to the song.

Only time and court proceedings will tell whether or not history will repeat itself.