Lady Gaga Has Been Accused of Stealing “Shallow” From a SoundCloud Singer

It's far from the shallow now. 

Last year, A Star Is Born brought us exceptional memes, romantic drama and masterful music. The lead single "Shallow" won Best Original Song at the 91st Academy Awards, where Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper shared a rather steamy performance. And no, they are still not together.

Now, the same song that put Gaga back on the map has landed her in some hot water. Earlier this week, she was threatened with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by a little-known songwriter who claims that the melody from "Shallow" was stolen from a song he released in 2012.

The musician, Steve Ronsen, is alleging that the three-note progression of G,A,B from his song "Almost" corresponds to the hook of "Shallow". In a statement to ET, Ronsen said, "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."

Despite this, Gaga and her team are simply not having it. "Mr. Ronsen and his lawyer are trying to make easy money off the back of a successful artist. It is shameful and wrong," Gaga’s lawyer, Orin Sydner, said in an official statement to ET.

"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 opportunistic claims such as this."

Snyder added that they provided Ronsen’s lawyer with "a lengthy letter with the findings of multiple leading musicologists, each of whom found no actionable similarities between the two songs."

While anything is possible, it seems unlikely that Gaga was just casually looking on SoundCloud for material, especially considering "Almost" had only been listened to 300 times as of last Thursday, before the lawsuit was threatened. That number has now jumped to 245,000.

This news comes just days after a jury decided that Katy Perry and others who worked on her song "Dark Horse" should pay $US2.78 million in damages to Christian rapper Flame for copyright infringement of his song "Joyful Noise".  

Although no lawsuit has been officially filed yet, it raises questions about how artists can protect their music. There are only so many notes to work with, and as Gaga’s team pointed out to ET, "Even [Ronsen’s] own musicologist acknowledged the generic three note progression is present in many other songs predating his client’s song."

However, one thing remains absolutely certain. No one can sing "HA AAHAAH AH" as well as Gaga.

Header Image: YouTube (Lady Gaga)