London, Jul 17 (IANS): British singer Leona Lewis has been accused of plagiarising her new song "Collide" from DJ Avicii's upcoming instrumental track "Penguin".
Lewis launched the dance track on Friday. It is her first single since last year's "I Got You".
Representatives from the Ministry of Sound, a London network that has a global network of international labels including dedicated offices in Australia, Germany and the US,
have reportedly demanded that music mogul Simon Cowell's Syco, the music label under which the song was released, pull the track.
"Leona Lewis has stolen our record. Collide is identical to Avicii's track. We've been working on this release for a year, then this week we heard Leona's track. Obviously Avicii is pretty upset about this," the sun.co.uk quoted a source from the Ministry of Sound as saying.
"A legal letter was sent to Simon Cowell and our lawyers have said they will take the appropriate action over the song. Surely if Leona knew how similar her track is to DJ Avicii's song, she wouldn't have decided to press ahead with the release," the source added.
Meanwhile, an insider at Syco says there is no legal issue as such.
"There is a zero legal case to answer. Avicii is already credited as a songwriter on Leona's song. It's a case of sour grapes (jealousy) from Ministry Of Sound," said the source