Features
‘Juda’ No ‘Judas’
A federal judge dismissed a copyright lawsuit against Lady Gaga filed by a Chicago songwriter who accused her of stealing parts of a 1998 song “Juda” to create the 2011 song “Judas.”
Photo: Greg Allen / GregAllenPhotos.com
Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rebecca Francescatti filed the suit in 2011. Judge Marvin Aspen ruled the songs do not have common lyrics, have different themes and sound nothing alike musically.
He also concluded there wasn’t enough evidence that Gaga could have heard or known about Francescatti’s song before publishing “Judas.”
Aspen ruled the songs “are so utterly dissimilar that reasonable minds could not differ as to a lack of substantial similarity between them.”