One Direction's songwriter dismisses plagiarism

Los Angeles: One Direction's songwriter has dismissed singer Hayley Williams' allegations that the boyband's latest track 'Steal My Girl' is similar to a song by band New Found Glory.

The 25-year-old Paramore singer and her guitarist boyfriend Chad Gilbert took to Twitter to point out similarities between the song and a track called 'It's Not Your Fault' by his band New Found Glory, reportedly.

"Props to the onedirection 'Steal My Girl' single for reworking the 'It's Not Your Fault' piano part into a top 40 single. Let me get a cut (sic)," Williams wrote.

The song has also been compared to classic rock ballad 'Faithfully' by band Journey. Julian Bunetta, who co-wrote 'Steal My Girl' with One Direction members Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson, insists any likeness is accidental.

"When we sat down and played the piano lick, nobody had any references in their head about what they wanted to write or anything and then I saw all the things (comments) about that (Journey song). At the end of the day, the lyric and the melody have nothing to do with any other song that I have ever heard," he said.

"Sometimes there's only so many things you can do with a piano at that tempo. There is an age-old saying that great minds think alike so, sometimes people are going to write on the same wave lengths and come up with things that are similar and it wasn't anyone's intention to do that at all. But at least we are being compared to a classic song and not a bad song, so that's a compliment." Bunetta added.