Nickleback’s Win in ‘Rockstar’ Copyright Suit Upheld on Appeal

Rock band Nickelback’s 2006 hit song “Rockstar” didn’t copy from a Texas musician’s song of the same name written a few years earlier, the Fifth Circuit ruled.

The three-judge panel on Monday found that singer Kirk Johnston’s song “Rock Star” and Nickelback’s song “are simply not sufficiently similar” to advance a copyright infringement claim. Johnston, a member of the band Snowblind Revival, also failed to show that Nickelback or its publishers had “accessed” his song.

The New Orleans-based panel appeared skeptical of Johnston’s case at oral arguments earlier this year.

Johnston sued Nickelback’s four members and the band’s publisher Warner ...