Did Justin Bieber steal 'Sorry' vocal riff?

(Facebook/JustinBieber)Did Justin Bieber steal 'Sorry' vocal riff?

Billboard award-winning music artist Justin Bieber is currently facing a lawsuit for an alleged copyright infringement regarding his smash hit song "Sorry." The singer was accused of stealing an eight-second vocal riff from "Ring the Bell," a song by indie artist Casey Dienel, who calls herself White Hinterland.

So, did the pop star really steal the controversial snippet?

Dienel seems to think so. The indie singer slammed a lawsuit against Bieber and his producer, DJ Skrillex, as well as the Universal Music Group and the other songwriters for purportedly using the "virtually identical" riff in his song without her consent. She also claims that the track's music — synth bass, percussion, synthesizers, drums, etc. — sounds very closely like those used in "Ring the Bell."

What's more is that it is repeatedly used throughout the song, six times in fact. She called it an "exploitation" of her work when she took to social media to announce her filing of the lawsuit  on Friday, May 27. The songstress indicated that she had tried to get in touch with the superstar to discuss an arrangement but had been repeatedly ignored, despite her threats to sue. Hence, she said she now feels there is only one way for this to go and that is to fight for her music and art.

Dienel is seeking undefined damages and a share in the profits of the song "Sorry" which has had 1.4 billion hits on YouTube.

Bieber's camp is not taking this sitting down though. They have not made a formal announcement in response to the accusation, but Skrillex posted a video on Twitter Saturday saying, "SORRY but we didnt steal this."

The video shows the DJ working on vocals by Julia Michael, a co-songwriter, during a "Sorry" writing session which produced the segment they are now being accused of sampling and stealing. Bieber retweeted the post adding the hashtag "#wedontsteal."

The tweet may point to the team not having sampled Dienel's "Ring the Bell" but does not explain the similarity regarding vocals from both songs.

But a collaborator of Skrillex's and Bieber's on the hit "Where Are U Now," Diplo, said in an interview with TMZ that he is quite sure that Bieber's side will be paying for this oversight.

"Somebody added it and then didn't tell anybody, so it's just they should have fact checked it. They don't want to go to court with it, that'd be like even more money that everybody wastes."

So far Bieber's publicists have not been heard from to shed some light on the matter.

In the meantime, the "Baby" singer is on a break from his Purpose World Tour which resumes June 11 in Winnipeg, Canada, and is pursuing what could be a new spark of romance with the "The Transformers: Age of Extinction" star, Nicola Peltz.

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