Bruno Mars looks to dismiss ‘Uptown Funk’ lawsuit

Singer Bruno Mars and record producer Mark Ronson have agreed with the representatives of 1980s electro-funk band Collage to dismiss a copyright dispute.

In a stipulation to dismiss the clash, filed at the US District Court for the Central District of California on Thursday, April 12, the parties agreed to drop the matter, which centres on hit song “Uptown Funk”, with prejudice.

Each party agreed to bear its own costs, attorneys’ fees, and expenses.

Yours, Mine & Ours Music and the estates of Grady Wilkins and Lee Peters (who were members of Collage) filed the copyright infringement claim in October 2016, alleging that “Uptown Funk” infringed Collage’s song “Young Girls”.

The estates claimed that Ronson and Mars’s song “is an obvious, strikingly and substantially similar copy of plaintiffs’ original composition”.

“Uptown Funk” has been viewed more than 3 billion times on YouTube.

The complaint added that the copying is “so blatant, clear and explicit so as to only be reasonably characterised even by a lay-person in the first several seconds as ‘strikingly similar’ in rhythm, harmony, melody, structure, nature”.

While the parties have agreed to drop this case, there are further question marks over “Uptown Funk”.

In September last year, Ronson was accused of copying “More Bounce to the Ounce”, a song written by funk musician Roger Troutman for his band Zapp. 

“Mark Ronson failed in his goal to write something new. Substantial parts of ‘Uptown Funk’ were copied from ‘More Bounce to the Ounce’”, alleged Lastrada Entertainment Company, which owns the right to the song.

Ronson and Mars were also sued by hip-hop trio The Sequence in December last year.