Her hips don’t lie, but her songwriting credits sure do.
A famous Spanish-language single by Colombian pop sensation Shakira is based on a stolen tune, a Manhattan federal judge has ruled.
The sexy singer’s song “Loca’’ — which hit the top of Latin Billboard in 2010 and sold 5 million copies — contains segments that were clearly copied from Dominican artist Ramon Arias Vasquez’s “Loca con su Tiguere” from the late 1990s, said Judge Alvin Hellerstein.
Distributor Sony is now on the hook for unspecified money damages.
Hellerstein said Shakira’s single may be based on the 2007 song by Dominican rapper El Cata, whose real name is Eduardo Edwin Bello Pou. But the judge said Bello’s version of “Loca con su Tiguere,” which was also distributed by Sony, actually copied Vasquez’s work.
Bello has denied copying the song.
The ruling is a big win for plaintiff Mayimba Music, which holds the rights to Vasquez’s work and sued Sony Corp of America and affiliates in 2012.
During arguments, Arias said his tune was “inspired by his older sister Janette’s relationship with her boyfriend, who as considered a ‘tiguere,’ and with a suitor from a wealthy family.”
Arias testified that he was in front of a popular recording-studio hangout in Santo Domingo in 2006 or 2007 when he ran into Bello.
Arias said he “leaned into the open door of the jeep that Bello was sitting in and sang his version of “Loca con su Tieguere’ and that Bello recorded it on a small recording device.’’
But Bello insisted that he penned the tune from memories of rain falling on his stepfather’s tin roof.
He said it was “inspired by his relationship with his ex-wife. She was from a wealthy background, whereas he was from a poor background,’’ the papers state.