Olivia Rodrigo Loses Millions Of Dollars After Copyright Accusations

Just weeks after fans started to accuse Olivia Rodrigo of copying Paramore on her hit song “Good 4 U,” the

Sep 3, 2021
Olivia Rodrigo

Just weeks after fans started to accuse Olivia Rodrigo of copying Paramore on her hit song “Good 4 U,” the singer has given Hayley Williams (who is the lead singer of the band) and former Paramore guitarist Joshua Farro writing credits on the track — a move that has reportedly cost her more than a million dollars. 

Yep, after the song was released back in May, many people quickly started to notice the similarities between it and Paramore’s 2007 single “Misery Business.” Some fans even made side by side comparison videos on TikTok and YouTube to show just how alike they really were, and the videos quickly went viral and took over the internet. Then, in late August, it was announced that Rodrigo had retroactively given Williams and Farro songwriting credits on “Good 4 U,” and everyone was pretty shook over it.

And get this — according to Billboard, while giving the Paramore alums writing credits on the song, Rodrigo lost over a million dollars. The outlet estimated that “Good 4 U” has made around $2.4 million in global publishing royalties so far, which means she now has to give Williams and Farro half — $1.2 million — while she and fellow songwriter Dan Nigro are left to split the other $1.2 million.

This Isn’t The First Time This Happened

Olivia Rodrigo

And it turns out, this isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s no secret that Rodrigo is a huge Taylor Swift fan — so much so that Rodrigo interpolated some of Swift’s chords from “New Years Day” into her own music. Yep, the Disney star was very open about the fact that Swift’s song inspired her track “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back,” when her album, Sour, first came out and she even gave the blonde beauty and Jack Antonoff writing credits on the song.  

But that’s not all. She may have been open about “New Years Day” inspiring her from the start, but the High School Musical: The Musical — The Series actress came under fire once again when fans pointed out that her song “Déjà Vu” also sounded just like Swift’s beloved tune “Cruel Summer.” Then, she reportedly added Swift, Antonoff and St. Vincent (who wrote “Cruel Summer” together) as writers to the song — weeks after it came out. The magazine claimed that in doing so, Rodrigo lost another $600,000.

Last but not least, some listeners also claimed that a guitar rift on her song “Brutal” had been taken from famed guitarist Elvis Costello, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“This is fine by me,” he tweeted. “It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did.”

Courtney Love Also Accused Her Of Copyright

Besides the music, Rodrigo was also accused of copying Courtney Love with some of the album’s promo pictures. In the photos, Rodrigo could be seen wearing a prom dress, holding flowers with makeup running down her face. And we’re not going to lie, it’s very similar to the album cover of Love’s band, Hole’s 1994 LP called Live Through This.

“Spot the Difference! #twinning,” Love said, adding in a Facebook comment, “Stealing an original idea and not asking permission is rude. There’s no way to be elegant about it. I’m not angry. It happens all the time to me. But this was bad form.”

Rodrigo then responded, writing, “Love you and live through this sooooo much.”

Adam Levine Had Her Back

Adam Levine

After everything went down, Maroon 5 front runner Adam Levine spoke up about it, and he defended the young star. 

“These are tricky things and anyone who’s ever written a song knows that you rip something off inadvertently, and it makes it to tape, and then it’s released and then there’s a lawsuit,” he explained on Instagram. “It’s a natural thing for it to happen, and sometimes it gets ugly and sometimes it’s warranted that people take legal action. Sometimes it’s not warranted that people take legal action. And I think there’s definitely become more of a gray area that’s reared its ugly head these days. I do think that we should probably meet this with a little more compassion and understanding and try to find a way. All this calling out, it’s like, music is a creative thing and I just hate to see it crushed.”

Over the years many other stars have been accused of stealing other people’s work over the years, including Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus and more. 

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