Adele has been ordered to pull a song from her catalogue following a plagiarism claim by a Brazilian composer.
The British singer is facing claims that her 2015 track Million Years Ago plagiarises Toninho Geraes’s 1995 hit Mulheres.
A Brazilian judge has now attempted to force music companies to drop Adele’s song from streaming services and suspend all sales of the track in any form.
Judge Victor Torres ordered an injunction stating that Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music must stop “immediately and globally, from using, reproducing, editing, distributing or commercializing the song ‘Million Years Ago’”.
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The move comes as part of a court case in Brazil, where composer Geraes has launched legal action against Adele.
Geraes claims that his song Mulheres (Women), created for the Brazilian singer Martinho da Vila, has been plagiarised and is pushing for $160,000 and a songwriting credit on Adele’s track, according to AFP.
His lawyer, Fredimio Trotta, said that case would be a “landmark for Brazilian music” which he claimed “has often been copied to compose successful international hits”.
Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music have not yet commented on the case.
It is not the first time that Adele’s track has been embroiled in a plagiarism row.
In 2015, soon after the track was released, Turkish music fans claimed that the song had striking similarities to a 1985 release called Acilara Tutunmak by singer Ahmet Kaya.
There have been a number of prominent plagiarism cases in recent years, with British star Ed Sheeran appearing in court in both the US and UK over claims that his tracks borrowed from others.
After winning a 2022 case in London over the song Shape of You, Sheeran expressed his frustration at vexatious claims of plagiarism.
In a video message to fans, he said: “There’s only so many notes and very few chords in pop music, coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 are being released every day on Spotify.
“That’s 22 million songs a year – and there’s only 12 notes that are available.”
He added: “I hope that this ruling means that in the future baseless claims can be avoided.”
