Brit Rips off The Bellamy’s???

According to the old-school country music duo The Bellamy Brothers, the title of the new Britney Spears single is a rip-off of one of their old hits . . . but not in the way you think.

It's not the SONG that sounds similar . . . it's the TITLE.  Britney's new single is called "Hold It Against Me", while the Bellamy Brothers had a hit in 1979 called "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me".

And in the chorus of the Britney Spears song, she sings, quote, "If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me."

David Bellamy says his son called him and told him that Britney's song had, quote, "pretty much the same title" as the Bellamy Brothers song . . . and he agreed.

He says, quote, "I just kind of found it unoriginal, and I guess it makes us realize how old we are, because they're recycling our titles already."

David realizes a lot of people use the same song titles, and it isn't a big deal . . . but he thinks this is different.  He says, quote, "This particular title is kinda hard to disguise, because the title is the song.  It's not like saying, 'I love you, baby.'

"I think songwriters have become watered down.  This makes me sound like an old man again, but I find that songwriters now are not as strong as they used to be in the '60 or '70s.  I naturally gravitate to that.

"I like singer-songwriters, strong hooks, old rock, and old country.  I'm not really a big fan of the Euro dance mixes, but I think there's just more original stuff out there to do than just rehashing old titles."

David won't make a final decision of whether or not to pursue legal action until he checks everything out.  He says, quote, "I just have to see what the intent was."  He also admits he's not too familiar with the copyright laws in this case.

Here's what the Bellamy Brothers have  failed to mention:  Britney Spears and her songwriters may not have invented the phrase, "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?" . . . but neither did the Bellamy Brothers.

In an interview just a few years ago with Songfacts.com, Howard Bellamy said they got the line from Groucho Marx . . . who used to say it to women on his game show, "You Bet Your Life" in the 1950s.

You can read his quote for yourself HERE