Madonna News

A European songwriter is looking to freeze Madonna out of some cold cash.

Belgian composer Salvatore Acquaviva is suing the Material Mommy, accusing her of ripping off parts of his song for her 1998 worldwide hit "Frozen" off the multiplatinum-selling album Ray of Light.

The suit, filed in the city of Mons, claimed Madonna's minor-key ditty plagiarized several bars of his track "Ma Vie Fout L'camp (My Life's Getting Nowhere)", written five years before.

"I was in the bath. I was listening to the radio, and thought that's strange, I know that melody. I said it's not possible," the European tunesmith told Belgium's RTL TV.

During a hearing last Wednesday, attorneys for Acquaviva alleged the pop diva may have heard his song after meeting with his producer. Madonna's local lawyers fired back, arguing that Acquaviva was simply looking to get money out of the singer.

"Just because there are similarities between two songs it doesn't mean it has been plagiarized," attorney Fabienne Brison told RTL. "There are certain artists who hear songs on the radio, see that they are very successful and say to themselves, 'Why shouldn't I try it on?' "

In any case, the local court has frozen the royalties for "Frozen" until the dispute is settled. That could be awhile, as the judge recently postponed hearings on the case until next month.

Madonna's rep, Liz Rosenberg, declined to comment on the case.

Suing the singer has been in vogue for some time.

A year ago, she settled another copyright-infringement suit, paying an undisclosed amount to the son of late French erotic photographer Guy Bourdin. The lensman's offspring claimed Madonna plagiarized several of Bourdin's images for her video for "Hollywood," a cut off her 2003 album, American Life.

Aside from battling plagiarism litigation, Madonna was one of several defendants named in a sexual harassment and wrongful termination suit in March by a former employee of her Maverick Films company.

Not that the Artist Otherwise Known as Esther has let such nuisances bother her. Although American Life is long gone from the charts, her re-Invention Tour has wrapped and her contract as the face of Versace is up (she was succeeded this week by Demi Moore), Madonna is still desperately seeking publicity.

She and her director husband Guy Ritchie caused a commotion among conservative Catholics earlier this year when they turned up at a bash celebrating the Jewish holiday of Purim dressed as a nun and pope, respectively.

And Monday night, she and Ritchie traipsed the red carpet for the London premiere of Sin City.

For her next trick, she'll join David Bowie and Snoop Dogg in the voice case of director Luc Besson's computer-generated children's tale, Arthur and the Minimoys, due to hit theaters in 2006. She's also planning on doing a movie version of one of her best-selling children's books, The English Roses.