Adele performs on stage at Messe München on August 2, 2024 in Munich, Germany. Photo / Getty Images
Adele performs on stage at Messe München on August 2, 2024 in Munich, Germany. Photo / Getty Images
Adele has been ordered to pull a song from her catalogue following a plagiarism claim by a Brazilian composer.
The British singer is facing claims that her 2015 track Million Years Ago plagiarises the music of Toninho Geraes’ 1995 samba hit Mulheres.
A Brazilian judge has now tried to force music companies to drop the Adele song from streaming services and suspend all sales of it.
Judge Victor Torres ordered an injunction stating that Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music must stop “immediately and globally, from using, reproducing, editing, distributing or commercialising the song Million Years Ago”.
The move is part of a court case in Brazil, with Geraes having launched legal action against Adele. Geraes claims Mulheres, created for the Brazilian singer Martinho da Vila, has been plagiarised and is pushing for US$160,000 ($277,950) and a song-writing credit on Adele’s track, according to AFP.
Fredimio Trotta, his lawyer, said the case would be a “landmark for Brazilian music”, which he claimed “has often been copied to compose successful international hits”.
Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music have not commented on the case.
It is not the first time that Adele’s track has been embroiled in a plagiarism row. In 2015, Turkish music fans claimed it had striking similarities to Acilara Tutunmak, a 1985 release by singer Ahmet Kaya.
Pharrell and Thicke were ordered to pay Gaye’s estate US$5 million (NZ$8.7m) and half of all future royalties following claims that their 2013 hit Blurred Lines copied from Gaye’s 1977 song, Got to Give It Up.
Queen and David Bowie alleged that the 1989 release Ice Ice Baby was remarkably similar to their joint track Under Pressure. The site was settled out of court and Vanilla Ice co-credited the British stars on the song.
After winning a 2022 case in London over the song Shape of You, Sheeran said in a video message to fans: “There’s only so many notes and very few chords in pop music, coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 are being released every day on Spotify.
“That’s 22 million songs a year – and there’s only 12 notes that are available. I hope that this ruling means that in the future baseless claims can be avoided.”
