A Los Angeles music performer and record producer says he was shocked and distressed to be accused of ripping off the Australian hit pop song Love Is In The Air.
"I did not believe there was any basis for it," said John Padgett, from the American duo Glass Candy.
His affidavit has been tendered in the Federal Court in Sydney in the ongoing copyright lawsuit over the song, written in 1977 by Harry Vanda and George Young, who died in 2017.
Vanda, Young's estate, Boomerang Investments and two Australian copyright bodies are suing Glass Candy, Padgett and the duo's lyric-writer Lori Monahan, Kobalt Music Publishing and Air France.
Justice Nye Perram has been played music videos showing John Paul Young performing the hit, Glass Candy performing their song Warm In The Winter, and an Air France advertisement using part of the duo's version which includes the words France Is In The Air.
In his affidavit, David Albert - the CEO of the Albert Group of Companies which includes Boomerang Investments - spoke of discussions he had with George Young about the Glass Candy song and the airline ad.
"He said to me on more than one occasion that Alberts 'must do something' and 'we can't allow a rip-off of our song to be used like this'," Mr Albert said.
Young told him: "People will think we allowed this" and "we would never have let them do that to our song".
Padgett said Monahan - also known as Ida No - writes Glass Candy's lyrics that start as poems, while he takes parts of them and matches them up with music he creates.
He denied claims that by using the phrase "love is in the air" and certain musical notes in the vocals of Warm In The Winter that the pair infringed copyright of the Australian hit.
He had never heard of that song until shortly before the September 2011 release of their song.
Their song had its origins in 2005 before going through a number of iterations and reaching the final version.
"I never thought that the phrase 'love is in the air', from the poem written by Ida, was owned or able to be exclusively used by any musician, let alone the applicants," he said.
He believed it was a common phrase used in ordinary language and had heard it "many times throughout my life".
Since becoming aware of the copyright claim, he had acquired many records - dating back to 1962 - titled Love Is In The Air.
Padgett also set out "numerous significant differences" between the two songs, including in the instrumentation and the vocal melody.
The case returns to court on Wednesday.
Australian Associated Press
