Photo Credit: Normani by Natanya Hansen / CC by 2.0

Sam Smith and Normani asked a federal judge to toss out a copyright lawsuit that alleges their 2019 hit “Dancing With a Stranger” copies an earlier track with a similar name.

It’s been a long road for Sam Smith and Normani, who previously triumphed against a long-running copyright lawsuit that alleged their 2019 track “Dancing With a Stranger” infringed on an earlier song with a near-identical name. However, the duo lost an appeal, and is now asking a federal judge to dismiss it once again.

In a request filed on July 7, attorneys for artists Sam Smith and Normani, as well as their co-writers and a group of companies including UMG Recordings, Sony Music Publishing, and Downtown Music Publishing, are seeking summary judgement in order to put the claim to bed without a trial.

The original lawsuit was filed by Sound and Color LLC. in 2022 by songwriter Jordan Vincent and production duo SKX. It alleged that Smith and Normani’s 2019 track copied its hook from the similarly named “Dancing With Strangers,” co-written by Vincent in 2015. A federal judge in California dismissed that case the following year.

But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals revived it in 2025, ruling that the matter should go to trial so a jury could determine the similarity between the two hooks. From there, the case went into another discovery phase, which focused on whether Smith and Normani and their various collaborators had in fact copied the earlier song.

In the process, Sound and Color dropped many of its claims, including that the songwriters had reasonable access to the earlier track. Now, Sound and Color must prove its theory as to the “striking” similarity of the two songs—which could be significantly more difficult to prove from a legal standpoint.

The phrase “dancing with a stranger” has appeared “in more than fifteen songs before Plaintiff’s song,” meaning a lot of the things they might argue as stolen count as “unprotected pitches and rhythms,” that are not unique enough to constitute infringement. The latest filing mentions several prior songs that use the phrase, including one by Cyndi Lauper.

Further, the filing claps back, claiming that the earlier “Dancing With Strangers” contains two unlicensed samples—”another independent, fatal defect” in the plaintiff’s claim. As the samples were not licensed, they argue that Sound and Color can’t claim copyright protection on a song built on top of them.

Meanwhile, Sound and Color says that experts have rejected that reasoning, including musicologist Ronald Sadoff, who said, “The notion that there’s only 88 notes on a keyboard is a worthless example that things are going to duplicate.”

A judge is scheduled to hear the motion in Los Angeles on August 14 and will decide whether it has enough value to warrant heading to trial.