In a recent claim filed in the US Federal Court for the Central District of California, the company responsible for the late soul legend Bill Withers’ back catalogue of music, Mattie Music Group, lodged complaints of copyright infringement following the release of Olivia Dean’s 2025 track ‘I’ve Seen it’. Mattie Music Group alleges that Olivia Dean’s track, particularly the rhythm and composition of the instrumentals, copies the whole of Bill Withers’ ‘Just the Two of Us’. Mattie Music Group’s claims are supported by an expert musicologist, who concluded in an expert report that the respective tracks were strikingly similar.
Notably, Mattie Music Group does not join Olivia Dean as a co-defendant in its claim, nor either of the allegedly infringing track’s producers Bastian Langbaek and Max Wolfgang. Instead, the claim is levelled at Sony Music Publishing, Capitol Records, and Kobalt Music Publishing America, being Olivia Dean’s publisher and record label and Max Wolfgang’s publisher respectively.
Mattie Music Group reportedly sought to resolve the matter in pre-action correspondence by putting the defendants on notice of the alleged infringement. However, after the reproduction and distribution of Olivia Dean’s track continued, Mattie Music Group therefore escalated matters with a claim.
Accordingly, Mattie Music Group is seeking an award of damages and a final injunction to prevent the defendants from infringing the copyright in ‘Just the Two of Us’. Whether the claim will proceed all the way to final trial or will instead settle beforehand is currently unknown, but one avenue to settlement may be the agreement of a retrospective licence to allow for sample clearance.
If you have any questions on the above, or if you need any advice or support in respect of your own Intellectual Property, please do not hesitate to contact the team at McDaniels Law on 0191 281 4000 or legal@mcdanielslaw.com.
