British star Olivia Dean is being accused of copying the melody from Bill Withers’ 1981 hit Just The Two Of Us in her song I’ve Seen It, the final track on her 2025 album, The Art Of Loving.
A legal case has been filed in California by the publishers of Withers’ catalogue, Mattie Music Group, and names Dean’s label Capitol Records and its parent company Universal Music Group as defendants.
According to legal documents obtained by the BBC, Mattie claims to have hired a musicologist to compare the two songs, and they’ve concluded that "the works contain substantial similarities".
Most notable is the charge of “repeated copying” of Just The Two Of Us’s melody, which likely refers to one specific section in I’ve Seen It’s verse. This occurs twice: at 0:35 and 1:39.
As musician David Bennett notes in a YouTube video, the melody here is indeed very similar to the one used throughout Just The Two Of Us's verses, but the chords and lyrics are different. In each use case, it only lasts for two bars.
It remains to be seen if Withers' publishers try and argue that other parts of the two songs are similar, too, but if the case goes to court, Withers’ publishers are likely to claim that it’s very unlikely that Dean or her co-writers Bastian Langebæk and Max Wolfgang weren’t aware of Just The Two Of Us, with the court papers referring to its "extraordinary and sustained" success and “decades of radio play”.
Commenting on the case, Kirsten Gilbert, Partner and Head of Brand Exploitation, Protection and TM Litigation UK at IP law firm, Marks & Clerk, said, “What is likely to come up again is the extent to which similarities between songs should be considered copyright infringement.”
“The debate has been around since Ed Sheeran publicly criticised what he described as baseless claims in circumstances where there are ‘only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music…coincidences are bound to happen,’” added Gilbert.
Sheeran successfully defended plagiarism claims relating to two of his songs – 2017’s Shape Of You and 2014’s Thinking Out Loud.
Gilbert also speculated that the claim might have been brought “on the basis that a settlement will be reached, as neither party actually wants to fight the matter in court.”
Whether that happens remains to be seen: “Ed Sheeran took a stand and was successful in defending claims brought both in the US and UK,” Gilbert points out. “It will be interesting to see how Olivia Dean’s legal team approach this claim.”
Just The Two Of Us was originally released by saxophonist Grover Washington Jr with Withers, who co-wrote the song with Ralph MacDonald and William Salter – listed as a featured artist.
