Last week, the musicians Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne they managed to obtain part of the royalties from Sam Smith's Stay With Me, being credited as co-authors of the same after the risk of a plagiarism lawsuit. Smith has ceded part of the rights to the song due to his song's similarity to I Won't Back Down, composed by Petty and Lynne in 1988.
Sam Smith declared to the press that the resemblance between the two songs is pure coincidence; however, to avoid legal plagiarism issues, he agreed to share royalties from the song with Petty and Lynne. For his part, in a recent statement, Petty denied that a dispute had been reached, assuring that it was an amicable agreement between the two parties and describing the similarity between the two songs as a "musical accident."
Stay with me topped the charts in several countries (England and the United States among them) and went on to sell more than six million copies in 2014. The lawsuit for the rights arose in October and was closed a few days ago, after Smith decided amicably cede 12,5% of the royalties to Petty and the song's composer, Jeff Lynne.