A British singer-songwriter named Katie Farrah Sopher is suing Disclosure along with their collaborators Sam Smith, Eliza Doolittle and AlunaGeorge for allegedly using her lyrics on their hit singles.
Sopher claims that she wrote the lyrics of Disclosure's "Latch," "White Noise," and "You And Me," as well as the lyrics of AlunaGeorge's "Attracting Flies," in a songbook that she believes was stolen by an abusive ex-boyfriend in 2009 and later sold to his music industry contacts. Legal documents seen by the Mail On Sunday reveal that she is suing the artists involved for over £200,000 in damages.
The songwriter's ex-partner Sean Sawyers has filed a defence with the High Court, stating: "There is zero truth to the claims made against me. I never saw the book the claimant mentions... [so] I could not have committed the alleged damages, theft, copyright infringement."
Last year, Disclosure and Sam Smith's frequent collaborator Jimmy Napes told the FADER that he wrote the lyrics of "Latch" about his wife. "I was picturing chasing my girl round this club. Because at the time I was courting my girl, it was just one of those moments where I was trying to find her, and she was just trying to dodge me basically...this is the girl I'm married to now! Most of the songs I've written actually are about her."
Meanwhile, Smith performed live on Austin City Limits this weekend. Watch below to see him sing his solo hits "Stay With Me" and "Money On My Mind," along with his Disclosure and Nile Rodgers collaboration "Together" and a couple of Whitney Houston covers.
UPDATE 1/21/15 9:14 a.m.: Disclosure have replied to the claims on their Facebook page. Their statement is below:
Hi all,
Just wanted to post a little something for our fans who may have read the blogs in the last couple of days and help clear up some speculation that has been circulating, to do with whether or not we wrote the lyrics to some of our songs.
Firstly we want to make it very clear that every Disclosure song we have put our names to has been written by us. We sometimes write lyrics and melodies along-side whoever the featured singer may be (i.e. Sam, Eliza etc) and the great Mr. Jimmy Napes, but that is it. When we do, we always make sure everyone gets proper credit. We take great pride in our self sufficiency, our work and the way we work, and it's incredibly frustrating when someone tries to take that away from us, by claiming we stole even one word or one note of our music from anyone.
We'd much rather be working on more music than commenting on these type of things, but it felt like we had no choice…
So, just to be clear, all allegations made against us to do with this subject are completely false, as anyone we have ever worked with will back up. We didn't get into this industry to steal other people's ideas and we haven't - we are musicians, artists and producers.
In better news… Album 2 is niiiiicely underway!
Lead photo credit: Karl Walter/Getty Images
