Avril Lavigne Sued for Stealing Songs
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Allie @ Gone Hollywood | Thursday, July 5, 2007 |
U.S. songwriters are suing Avril Lavigne for stealing her hit single, ‘Girlfriend‘.
Watch the video, it’s truly obvious that they are the same song. Tsk Tsk!
Canadian punk princess Avril Lavigne is being sued by U.S. songwriters who claim that her smash hit Girlfriend sounds suspiciously like a single they released in the 1970s.
Lavigne’s manager, Terry McBride, said the pop starlet is one of several people named in a lawsuit filed July 2 that alleges striking similarities to the Rubinoos’ song I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.
McBride, also CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, dismissed the suit Wednesday as baseless, calling it a “case of legal blackmail.”
“Avril’s a great songwriter and she’s proving it over and over and over again,” he said from Vancouver.
He noted that Lavigne heard the Rubinoos song for the first time after learning of the suit.
“Avril’s very, very sensible. She knows music well. If the chords had been similar, the melodies had been similar, lyrics had been similar, the meter, she would have gone, ‘Okay, I can see their point.’ But nothing’s similar.”
Songwriters Tommy Dunbar and James Gangwer filed suit in California’s Northern Federal District Court and also name Lavigne’s publishing company, Avril Lavigne Publishing, and Lavigne’s songwriting partner, Dr. Luke, as defendants.
The Rubinoos song came out in 1979 and features the poppy chorus: “Hey, hey, you, you, I wanna be your boyfriend,” much like Lavigne’s more up-tempo hit, which goes, “Hey, hey, you, you, I don’t like your girlfriend.”
McBride said he hired a musicologist to study both tracks when he received a draft of the allegations about six weeks ago. “This one came back so solidly on our side it’s just ridiculous,” he said.
Still, he admitted that he is considering settling the suit out of court if the costs of defending the case prove too high. He noted that a similar claim against Sarah McLachlan about 10 years ago cost the label roughly $500,000 to defeat in court. When Nettwerk tried to recoup the costs from the plaintiffs, they declared bankruptcy, he said.
“It’s a very simple case of legal blackmail. It’s an unfortunate part of this business,” McBride said.
“We will try and settle for costs that will be less than defending so we’d be further ahead. Emotionally, it sucks. But at the end of the day you have to take that out of it.”
Man, she is so screwed.
What Other’s Are Saying:
Dlisted says, Those songs are basically the same. Hilarious! Avril seriously has the songwriting skills of a 1970s folk artist. She’s f*king Woody Gurthrie reincarnated!
source: globe and mail
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Comments are Closed
Does anyone else think this ridiculous? I think everyone is just being very closed minded about all this. Yes, they sound similar, but so do a lot of other songs. I don’t think that she would copy them, if anything I think that she may have heard that awful song and those lyrics poped in her head when she was writing. This would have never been heard of if the Rubinoos hadn’t brought it up so how would she have even heard of them? They have no talent and that’s why they are finding an alternative to get money. She didn’t steal anything.