News - 17 November 2022 12:43

Disney sued by musician Daniel Grigson over a song from 'Frozen II' soundtrack

The song Some Things Never Change from the Frozen II animated movie is the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit against The Walt Disney Co. and songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

Musician Daniel Grigson accused the songwriters of stealing key melodic elements, chord progressions, and even portions of the words from his song That Girl which he wrote almost two decades ago.

Grigson claims in the lawsuit that he has a "very public history of writing original music for and with children," including "That Girl," which he released in 1999 with his band Neccos for Breakfast.

Through 2014, the song apparently received over 100,000 streams on Trusonic and is still accessible on other platforms.

Grigson thinks the phrase "some people never change" and the chorus of That Girl is too significant to be a coincidence.

While watching the Disney movie in theater with his wife and kids, he claimed that the song in the 2019 movie "caught him off guard" because the similarities between the two songs were so obvious.

"His 11-year-old daughter leaned over to him and said, 'Dad, Disney took your song,'" the lawsuit notes.

According to TMZ, Grigson even hired an analyst to compare the two songs, who assessed them as being similar on a "technical level" in addition to how they sound.

Grigson is asking for profits from the song and for Disney to stop using the music.

Copyright infringement cases are frequent in the music industry. Recently, popstar Dua Lipa was sued twice for her hit song Levitating.

PitchMark helps innovators deter idea theft, so that third-parties that they share their idea with get the idea but don’t take it. Visit PitchMark.net and register for free as a PitchMark member today.

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