Lady Gaga is hoping Usher can help her to win a plagiarism lawsuit filed against her.
Vocalist
Rebecca Francescatti is suing the singer and claiming Gaga's song Judas
is a rip-off of her own 1999 tune Juda, filing a lawsuit in 2011 at
federal court in a bid to win damages from the multi-millionaire star,
but Gaga believes a similar lawsuit involving Usher could be the key to
her winning this battle.
A source told RadarOnline
that Gaga filed documents this week arguing, 'if the title lyrics of
the two songs at issue are the same, and even if those lyrics are
repeated in a chorus, they are not eligible for copyright protection if
common phrases or words.
Is he the key? Lady Gaga is hoping a ruling in
favour of Usher last year can help her win her own copyright lawsuit
regarding her hit Judas
'The
only lyrical similarity that Francescatti alleges in this case is in
the title character – the repeating of "Juda" in her song and "Judas" in
Lady Gaga’s song (the expression of which in each work is entirely
different, in all events).'
The
papers filed go on to mention Usher's case where Zacharia Edwards,
Mitch Moses and Vince McClean alleged his song Caught Up was written by
them.
According
to Gaga's filing: 'As in Edwards, which found the lyrics "caught up" to
be unoriginal, the lyric "Judas," whether as a song title or lyric, is
too common to be protectable.'
Lawsuit: Singer Rebecca Francescatti [R] has filed a lawsuit alleging Gaga's Judas is too similar to her song Juda
Gaga is asking that the lawsuit be dismissed based on the same ruling which led to the case against Usher being dropped.
In
2011 Fancescatti claimed the similarities between the two songs are not
a coincidence because her former bass player Brian Gaynor was employed
by a music company that wrote 17 songs on Gaga's Born This Way album.
Dragging on: The case against Gaga was filed in 2011 but is still dragging on three years later
Rebecca is seeking unspecified damages.
Her
lawyer Chris Niro told TMZ: ‘Though the songs are different styles, the
composition is the same and the chorus is the same melody.
‘[Rebecca] is seeking recognition for what she created.'