British guitarist’s lawsuit over U2’s ‘The Fly’ dismissed

An attempt by British guitarist Paul Rose to be paid $5 million in damages and get a writing credit on U2’s 1991 single ’The Fly’ has failed.

New York US district judge Denise Cote has dismissed his lawsuit, which named the band and their record label Island Records/Universal Music.

Rose claimed that a 12-second segment of the “elaborate and distinctive” guitar solo on the U2 song from their Achtung Baby album used “virtually note for note” a 13-second segment of his 1989 instrumental ‘Nae Slappin’.

He said he had sent a demo tape of his track to Island Records, and that the band used it because their sound was “in need of invigoration.”

Rose’s court documents cited the similarities in the guitar line, the bass line, the distortion sound, the percussion rhythms, and use of tambourine.

He also suggested that U2 had heard his track because both shared a later chord change from E7 to A7 and their "dimension of sound."

Judge Cote found that there may be similarities between the two tracks.

But at the same time there are also substantial differences in the musical elements.

She pointed out that ‘The Fly’ does not "recreate the notes, sounds, or rhythm of the plaintiff’s work in a way that would permit a finding that the copying was sufficiently close to find infringement under the fragmented literal similarity doctrine.”

The 13-second segment of ‘Nae Slappiin’ question, she added, was not enough of a "sufficiently substantial" portion of the 3½ minute long track, to be a protectable "fragment" of the work.

It only occupied 6% of the track and only used once, at the beginning, and not repeated later.

Rose, she said, may have insisted that the segment was an "important foundation" to the structure and sound of his track, but he failed to prove it.

She also shrugged off his other claims of alleged similarities between the two tracks as "too vague to describe protectable expression."

U2’s defence had been that an ordinary listener would consider that the two tracks were “nothing alike.”

They also questioned why Rose waited until February 2017 to sue, saying “nothing about ‘The Fly’ has changed in the quarter century since it was released.”