Justin Bieber and Dan + Shay may be spending the next 10,000 hours responding to a new lawsuit.
According to court documents obtained by E! News on April 22, the musical trio—who teamed up for their 2019 hit, “10,000 hours”—are being sued for copyright infringement over their Grammy-winning single. In a complaint filed in a Los Angeles federal court, a company called Melomega is accusing the singers of copying the “core portion” of their song from a single released in 2014 called “The First Time Baby Is a Holiday.”
“Defendants’ theft is impudently bold,” their compliant states. “One need only listen to ‘First Time’ and the infringing ‘10,000 Hours’ to discern the unmistakable similarities between the songs.”
In the complaint, Melomega also presented a report from musicologist Dr. Alexander Stewart, who, according to the suit, analyzed the two singles and came to the “universal and ineluctable conclusion that Defendants stole Plaintiff’s song.”