When Justin Bieber Was Accused Of Copying This Song That's Over 40 Years Old

In 2022, Melomega Music filed a complaint alleging that 10,000 Hours plagiarized a song from 1973, targeting Justin Bieber and his collaborators, the country artists Dan + Shay. 10,000 Hours, released in October 2019, entered the charts at No. 4 on the Hot 100 and later secured the Best Country Duo/Group Performance award at the 2021 Grammy Awards.

A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court by Melomega alleged that the artists had appropriated the "core portion" of their hit song from a relatively obscure 1980 track titled The First Time Baby Is A Holiday. "Defendants’ theft is impudently bold. One need only listen to 'First Time' and the infringing '10,000 Hours' to discern the unmistakable similarities between the songs," the company's legal representative Tre Lovell said to justify their complaint. The attorney further wrote, "’10,000 Hours’ is not just substantially similar to ‘First Time’; defendants copied, in minute detail, the most important, core portion of plaintiff’s song, which includes the chorus, verse, and hook according to The Things. The similarities are so striking that ‘10,000 Hours’ simply cannot have been independently created."  

The plaintiffs pursued compensation, recognition, and a court order to halt further distribution of Bieber's hit track. Melomega cited the findings of musicologist Dr. Alexander Stewart, who concluded after analyzing both songs that the defendants had appropriated their composition. The song's composition was officially registered at the U.S. Copyright Office in 1980. According to the lawsuit, the song became accessible through Sony Music subsidiary The Orchard in 2014. Meanwhile, the representatives and publicists for Bieber and Dan + Shay, whose real names are Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney, barely shared anything to address the fiasco initially. Melomega's legal team emphasized that this case differs from others where only "as few as 6 to 7 consecutive notes" were allegedly copied per Billboards. 

"Here, in contrast, several 47-note sections of ‘10,000 Hours’ are virtually identical to parallel sections of ‘First Time’. Such a lengthy expression of largely identical musical composition is nothing less than strikingly similar," Melomega wrote. Melomega's legal representatives contended that the striking resemblance between the two songs is so pronounced that it obviates the need to demonstrate that Bieber or Dan + Shay had access to their composition. Alternatively, they argued that the widespread availability of the song across major streaming and download platforms suggests a high likelihood that Bieber or Dan + Shay came across it.

While the lawsuit meticulously detailed the similarities between the two songs, it allocated considerably less focus to elucidating why Melomega suspects that Bieber or Dan + Shay were exposed to First Time, a track that has garnered just over 8,000 streams on Spotify since 2014. Establishing this link, known as "access," was a crucial legal component in any copyright infringement case, yet direct evidence of such access was not presented.