Power Ballad: how Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas' film taps into real music copyright battles

Music's lawsuit era gets its movie

Director John Carney has built a career turning music into drama, from the intimate romance of Once (2007) to the coming-of-age energy of Sing Street (2016). His latest, Power Ballad, arrives in theaters nationwide on June 5 and finds its conflict in a very contemporary corner of the industry: the music copyright lawsuit. According to Billboard, the film stars Paul Rudd as Rick, a middle-aged wedding singer living in Ireland who believes his heartfelt ballad has been stolen by Danny, an ex-boy bander played by Nick Jonas, desperate to revive a stalling solo career.

Where there's a hit, there's a writ

The film's title nod to legal culture is not accidental. A record executive in the movie delivers the old industry axiom with a straight face: "Where there's a hit, there's a writ." Carney told Billboard he has spent years watching that dynamic play out in real life, among friends and in newspaper headlines alike.

The real cases behind the script are easy to identify. Back in 2022, Dua Lipa was accused of stealing "Levitating" from a Florida reggae group, a case later dropped. That same year, Ed Sheeran won a trial over claims that "Shape of You" had copied a song called "Oh Why" by Sami Chokri. In 2023, Post Malone settled with a studio musician who claimed to have helped create "Circles" during an all-night session and been denied credit. A 2024 case against Megan Thee Stallion was dismissed after a judge found no evidence the artist had ever heard the song in question.

Not a courtroom drama

Carney was deliberate about keeping Power Ballad away from legal procedure. "We didn't want to do a courtroom drama," he said. "We decided to write a hopefully more timeless story: how an artist feels when they feel they've been ripped off." The central tension, then, is emotional rather than procedural. Rick cannot prove he wrote the song "How to Write a Song (Without You)" after a hazy night of drinking and jamming with Danny at a wedding. Nobody believes him, and the pursuit begins to cost him everything.

That emotional core reflects something Carney noticed in his research: accusers in real copyright disputes often spend years and rack up enormous legal bills chasing credit and compensation. "You could, and I'm sure plenty of people have, kind of die on the altar of getting remuneration and credit for their thing," he told Billboard. "But it's not worth it."

A story that lands on both sides

What separates Power Ballad from a simple morality tale is that the audience knows more than the characters do, putting viewers in a genuinely uncomfortable position throughout. Carney, who has spent decades in the orbit of working musicians, frames the film less as a verdict on the industry and more as a study in obsession, ambition, and the strange grief of feeling like your art has been taken from you.

For anyone following music rights disputes over the last few years, it should feel very familiar.