70s pop band the Rubinoos have filed a lawsuit against Lavigne claiming that her recent (and extremely annoying) single Girlfriend. Is a rip off of their single “I wanna be your boyfriend”. "The lyric, the metre, the rhythm, they're identical," said Tommy Dunbar, guitarist and lead songwriter of the Rubinoos,. "We are not so naive as to chalk it up to some sort of cosmic coincidence."
The chorus of his song contains the words: "Hey, hey, you, you I wanna be your boyfriend," while Lavigne sings: "Hey, hey, you, you, I want to be your girlfriend" in a remarkably similar style. Music industry experts say the Rubinoos may have a case. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, a writer for Billboard magazine, said Lavigne's version appeared to be "a total lift" from the earlier song.
Terry McBride, Lavigne's manager, dismissed the plagiarism claim as "an unfortunate part of the business. 'OK, I can see their point'. But nothing's similar. We will try and settle for costs that will be less than defending,"
Check out this from You tube and make up our mind, then wonder why I even bothered with this crap in the first place.. Well it did seem like a good idea when I started the post!
6 comments:
The two songs do have at least one thing in common: they are both instantly forgettable!
Sounds overtly similar to me, but then again, most pop music does. If bands starting suing each other over who used “hey hey hey” in their chorus first, we would not have many pop songs today.
Okay, this is so weird. First of all, I hate Avril Lavigne's music, but I can tolerate most of it. Sadly, this is not the case for 'Girlfriend,' and of course since it makes me want to puncture my eardrums with a spork its become one of the most overplayed songs of all time.
I love Kevin Gilbert and his work with Toy Matinee. The head of his memorial fund and website was the lead guy in The Rubinoos. Weird.
My girls and I were just discussing how J.K. Rowling ripped off an American author for the first Harry Potter book but the other lady lost in court. Please, I'm totally sure it was random coincidence to have two authors write about a magician with the last name Potter and discuss terminology like 'Muggles.' The other lady predates HP by years.
If I could say it withiout breaking into a laugh I would say something like "are you criticisng such pearls of art?" bust I really can't say it Roger!
On the other hand Rolan a lot if it due to there being loads of samples in pop music. Heaven forfend that many of them would actually write a song!
Actually I think it is as annoying as hell Ewbl. I had utterly forgotten about teh Rubinoos ( hadn't thought about them in years and even when I did it was a fleeting thought!)I have never heard of Kevin Gilbert what did he do?
I didn't know about teh court case. To be honest I've taken no interest in Harry Potter. I remember there was an issue over plagiarism in Roots. I'm sure a lot of it happens, a fair bit of it on the Poor Mouth!
What a song... utterly without redeeming value of any sort, no matter who wrote it first!
Plagiarism is often a difficult call, especially between works in the same genre if the genre is itself somewhat (ahem) limiting. Offhand, I'd say yes, Lavigne plagiarized here. But in the case of this song, surely it matters only to the performers; why would anyone else give a damn.
It isn't very good is it Steve! You're right abut plagiarism, On the other hand KLavigne sells lots of music so I daresay teh Rubinoos want a slice of the cake. Had it been a bunch of nobodies it would have been not much of an issue
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