Justin Beiber, Usher escape $10 million song plagiarism lawsuit

One less legal battle for Justin Bieber to worry about.

The plantiffs of the case, Devin "The Dude" Copeland and Mareio Overton, alleged they collaborated and wrote a song that shared qualities of Bieber and Usher's hit 2010 song "Somebody to Love."  The two songs shared a number of elements, mainly being the hooks being "'I ... need somebody to loooooove!'" 

The U.S. district judge Arenda Allen presiding over the case dismissed it, but with prejudice.

The Hollywood Reporter said the judge wrote, "Having examined Plaintiffs' song and the three accused songs, the Court finds that the songs cannot be reasonably construed as being substantially similar... Although the accused songs have some elements in common with Plaintiffs' song, their mood, tone, and subject matter differ significantly."

Copeland stated that he had pitched his and Overton's song to a firm called Sangreel Media who presented the song to a number of artists, including Usher.  There were discussions with Usher's mother and manager but in 2009, communications ended, Usher wrote the song "Somebody to Love," uploaded it to the Internet, then recorded a version of the song with Bieber who put the song on his album My World 2.0.

The judge continued, "This is not a case where a listener who had not 'set out to detect the disparities would be disposed to overlook them, and regard [the songs'] aesthetic appeal as the same.' Instead, any listener who had not set out to detect the songs' similarities would be inclined to overlook them, and regard the songs* aesthetic appeal as different. Therefore, a reasonable juror could not conclude that a member of the public would construe the aesthetic appeal of the songs as being similar."

If you need a refresher on the song or just want to revisit the better days of the Biebs, check out the video below: