Lady Gaga Slams Claims She Stole 'Shallow': 'Trying to Make Easy Money,' Her Lawyer Says
Lady Gaga isn’t going to be intimidated by the threat of legal action.
Songwriter Steve Ronsen has threatened to file a lawsuit against the singer, who wrote the Academy Award-winning A Star Is Born track with Andrew Wyatt, Anthony Rossomando and Mark Ronson.
Ronsen has alleged that a chord progression from his 2012 song “Almost” was stolen for the melody of “Shallow.”
Gaga’s lawyer, Orin Snyder, slammed the allegation and released a statement, obtained by Entertainment Tonight and Page Six, on behalf of the 33-year-old singer. “Mr. Ronsen and his lawyer are trying to make easy money off the back of a successful artist,” Synder said.
“It is shameful and wrong,” he added. “I applaud Lady Gaga for having the courage and integrity to stand up on behalf of successful artists who find themselves on the receiving end of such [claims]. Should Mr. Shirian proceed with this case, Lady Gaga will fight it vigorously and will prevail.”
In the statement, Snyder also wrote that “multiple leading musicologists” they contacted “found no actionable similarities between the two songs.”
“Even Shirian’s own musicologist acknowledged the generic three note progression is present in many other songs predating his client’s song,” he said.
RELATED: Listen to More Soundalike Songs Involved in Plagiarism Lawsuits
Releasing a statement of his own, Ronsen claimed that although he had never seen A Star Is Born, he was told “by many people” of similarities between the two tracks.
“It was brought to my attention by many people that the ‘Shallow’ song sounds like mine. I did not seek this out, I haven’t even seen the movie (I heard it’s pretty good),” Ronsen said in a statement to ET. “I admire Lady Gaga and I just want to get to the bottom of this. There are other writers that wrote the ‘Shallow’ song, including Mark Ronson. I have secured a musicologist who also agrees that the songs are similar. I am simply going about this how anyone else would investigate any possible infringement.”
Ronsen’s attorney, Mark D. Shirian, also released a statement to Page Six.
“In an effort to amicably resolve this matter months ago, my office provided Lady Gaga’s legal team, at their request, with an official report from a renowned and respected musicologist and professor who determined that there are significant tempo, melodic, rhythmic and harmonic similarities between the two ‘hooks’ of the songs at issue,” Shirian wrote. “Lady Gaga’s team has yet to provide my office with an opposing musicologist report, which we have requested multiple times.”
Gaga’s attorney, Ronsen and Shirian did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
RELATED VIDEO: Katy Perry’s Hit ‘Dark Horse’ Copied a Christian Rap Song, a Jury Finds
News of the threatened lawsuit comes a week after a jury found that Katy Perry’s 2013 track “Dark Horse” infringes on the copyright of a Christian rap song.
On July 29, a nine-member federal jury found that Perry’s hit track copied the Christian song “Joyful Noise,” released under Marcus Gray’s stage name, Flame. The decision came five years after Gray and two co-authors first sued.
Perry’s camp will have to pay $2.78 million in damages, although her record label Capitol Record will foot the majority of the bill.
