The legal decision is likely to be costly for Adele. On December 13, the Rio de Janeiro court demanded a ban on the worldwide distribution of the song Million Years Ago following a complaint for plagiarism filed by the Brazilian composer Toninho Geraes. The English singer-songwriter and her producer are currently accused of copying the song’s melody Women, a classic of Brazilian samba.
If the complaint is still being analyzed and plagiarism has not yet been proven, the court recognized “strong indications of melodic similarities”, according to the Brazilian newspaper The Globe. The Brazilian subsidiaries of Sony Music and Universal Music, Adele’s record labels, were therefore banned from “using, reproducing, publishing, distributing or marketing” Million Years Ago “at the global level” and “on any medium”, under penalty of a fine of 50,000 reais (i.e. 7,800 euros). Toninho Geraes filed a complaint in 2021 after noting disturbing similarities between the English song and his song Women, recorded in 1995 by one of the most famous samba singers in Brazil, Martinho da Vila. “He states that the introduction and several other moments of Million Years Ago take up the notes of his song […]. According to its analysis, almost 90% of Adele’s music has been copied,” the Brazilian daily previously explained. Correio Braziliense. The artist is demanding, among other things, one million reais (around 156,000 euros) in damages.
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“Parasitic profiteers”
“It is a turning point for Brazilian music which, due to the richness of its melodies, its harmony and its rhythms, is often copied to compose international hits,” declared the lawyer for the prosecution, Fredimio Trotta, to the AFP. According to him, the verdict should “deter parasitic profiteers” from further attempts at plagiarism. If the Brazilian subsidiaries of Sony Music and Universal Music can still appeal the decision, they have not commented for the moment. Another controversy over the same Adele song had already erupted in Türkiye, when internet users said they had identified similarities with the tune of the title holding on to painby the Kurdish singer Ahmet Kayadied in 2000.
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