Arty brings lawsuit against Marshmello for allegedly plagiarizing ‘Happier’

by: Dancing Astronaut Staff May 6, 2019

Veteran electronic producer Arty is suing Marshmello, claiming one of the masked producer’s biggest hits, the Bastille-assisted “Happier,” is actually plagiarized. The terms of the suit claim that Marshmello and Bastille used remixed elements of Arty’s 2014 remix of “I Lived” by OneRepublic.

This particular lawsuit is unique, in that the legal dispute is mainly anchored to the song’s beat and other components, as opposed to the underlying composition. While Arty’s remix was an undoubted success in 2014, “Happier” managed to claim the top spot on the dance music charts for 31 consecutive weeks in 2018 and grab a double-platinum certification as a result.

According to The Tennessean, the publication that broke the story, Arty and Marshmello’s shared music publisher, Kobalt Music, as well as
Daniel Campbell Smith, co-founder of Bastille, are named as co-defendants in the suit. Upon inspection of the two songs, both drops share suspiciously similar arrangements, and Redditors were even quick to point out the similarity months before the lawsuit was officially brought to court.