This went to court years ago in Italy. I believe Michael won in the lower Court and Mr. Carrisi was order to pay costs to everyone involved. He appealed and I think Mr. Carrisi won. The lyrics are not the same, but sections of the compostion are. That was the judges issue in the higher court. Michael said it was coincidental and had been inspired by a song in the 30's. I don't know in which court he said what. I haven't confirmed that he said it was inspired by a song in 1939 or looked at the composition for that song.
And I want to repeat something I said before about the Paul Anka issue. In the copyright office only Michael is listed for that song. I had thought previously that I saw both Michael and Paul there HOWEVER, In the BMI database Paul and Michael are CO-AUTHORS of that song and to my knowledge always were in that database as such. I remember looking it up before. And I don't know who submitted the paperwork to BMI. So how this got on the copyright app with just Michael, I don't know. Who knows what went down between Michael and Paul, but I personally don't believe that Michael deliberately stole a song that he co-wrote with Paul.
