Is it too late for Justin Bieber and Skrillex to say sorry for allegedly using the riff from Casey Dienel a.k.a. White Hinterland’s 2014 track “Ring the Bell?” Now that legal action has been taken, a mere apology probably won’t suffice. Bieber, Skrillex, as well as Julia Michaels, Justin Tranter, and Michael Tucker — the other songwriters responsible for “Sorry”—are being sued for copyright infringement for sampling the ascending vocal riff at the beginning of “Ring the Bell” in addition to other musical elements from the song.
“The identical and/or striking similarity of ‘Sorry’ to Plaintiff’s song ‘Ring the Bell’ surpasses the realm of generic coincidence and independent creation,” the complaint filed by Dienel reads. “To write, create, produce, and record the song ‘Sorry,’ the Defendants knowingly and unlawfully copied original, protectable elements of the musical composition of ‘Ring the Bell’ and unlawfully sampled Plaintiff’s protectable sound recording of ‘Ring the Bell.’”
Dienel’s team also claims to have sent a letter to Bieber’s camp asking them to stop using the sample in December 2015. Clearly, he ignored the request. Dienel now wants “damages, a declaration of copyright infringement, and an injunction to prevent further alleged copyright infringement of ‘Ring the Bell,’” which could mean preventing Bieber from playing the track in the future.
Copyright-infringement cases are common in the music industry, and hit songs aren’t immune to multi-million-dollar judgments. In 2011, Orrin Lynn Tolliver Jr. received $1.2 million in a settlement after it was determined that the Black Eyed Peas’ 2005 song “My Humps” sampled his 1983 song “I Need a Freak.” In 2015, a federal jury ruled that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’s 2013 hit “Blurred Lines” copied elements from Marvin Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up,” awarding more than $7.3 million to Gaye’s family.
Neither Skrillex nor Bieber have yet to comment on the matter. The unbelievable juggernaut of a video for “Sorry” has over 1.4 billion views on YouTube. It’s a force unto itself, and it might be too late to apologize, although surely Bieber has made enough money off the song to share some with Casey Dienel for her vocal riff.
