Mattie Music Group, operating as Bleunig Music and representing part of the late Bill Withers' catalog, filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit on October 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, accusing Olivia Dean's track "I've Seen It" of copying the "distinctively protectable melody" of Withers' classic "Just the Two of Us."
The seven-page complaint, filed as case 2:26-cv-11383, names Universal Music Group, Capitol Records, Sony Music Publishing and Kobalt Music Publishing America as defendants. Notably, Dean herself is not named as a defendant, nor are her co-writers Bastian Langebaek and Max Wolfgang, though the complaint does name 50 "Doe" defendants and says it will add their real names once known. The publisher alleges the trio "had a reasonable opportunity to encounter" Withers' song before writing "I've Seen It."
"I've Seen It" is the closing track on Dean's 2025 album "The Art of Loving," which Capitol released on September 26, 2025. The song at the other end of the dispute needs little introduction: "Just the Two of Us," the 1981 R&B classic co-written by Bill Withers with Ralph MacDonald and William Salter, was recorded by jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. featuring Withers on vocals. It reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy for Best R&B Song. Withers, who died in 2020, was signed to Mattie Music Group — one of three publishers credited on the composition, alongside Antisia Music and BMG Ruby Songs — when he co-wrote the song.
According to the complaint, the publisher hired a musicologist to compare the two works, and the analysis concluded there are "substantial similarities in protectable musical expression," with Dean's song repeatedly reproducing the earlier track's melodic structure. Mattie Music says it reached the "obvious and inescapable conclusion" that "I've Seen It" copied Withers' track, and that it sent cease-and-desist letters to all four named defendants in August — but that the parties "continued reproducing, distributing, licensing, publicly performing, and commercially exploiting" Dean's song regardless.
The publisher is seeking a permanent injunction barring further use of the track, damages equal to its own losses plus the defendants' profits tied to the alleged infringement, attorneys' fees and costs, and a court order mandating the seizure and destruction of all existing copies of the song. Representatives for the companies and for Dean had not publicly responded when the suit was reported by outlets including Reuters.
The case lands at a moment of unusual prominence for Dean, who won the 2026 Grammy for Best New Artist on the strength of "The Art of Loving" and its breakout hits. It also revives the music industry's perennial anxiety over where influence ends and infringement begins — the same territory that produced the "Blurred Lines" verdict and a string of high-profile settlements. Whether the similarities a musicologist hears amount to unlawful copying is now a question for a California federal court.