Alicia Keys Sued for Copyright Infringement Over "Girl on Fire"

Songwriter Earl Schuman taking the singer to court after a blogger wrote that Keys used a small portion of his song "Hey There Lonely Girl" in her hit song

Alicia Keys is under fire for allegedly lifting a portion of a song for her own hit single.

The superstar singer was hit with a copyright-infringement lawsuit for "Girl on Fire" last week after a Showbiz 411 blogger wrote a post about it, saying, "Alicia sings a couplet or so from Eddie Holman's 1970 classic ‘Hey There Lonely Girl'" and claiming that the sample wasn't credited, according to the The Hollywood Reporter.

"The song was written by Leon Carr and Earl Shuman, who are both gone to rock and roll heaven," Roger Friedman wrote.

As it turned out, though, Schuman himself was still very much alive.

The songwriter contacted Friedman back in November, leaving a comment on his post that said, "Hi Roger, I am the cowriter of 'Hey There Lonely Girl' and I appreciate your recognizing an important part of 'Lonely Girl' in Alicia Keys' new recording. Thanks for your expertise. By the way, though my dear friend Leon Carr is in Rock and Roll Heaven, I'm still here on the ground, writing songs."

And then Schuman took action, basing the majority of his case on Friedman's post.

Although Friedman originally noted (and later removed the line), "Keys only uses two seconds of ['Hey There Lonely Girl'] but it helps make her record," the lawsuit noted that "two seconds" wasn't accurate, but the rest of the article was "apt."

Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Corporation of America are among the defendants named in the suit.