American singer Lizzo is being sued in a California court over an excerpt from an unreleased song that went viral due to a reference to Sydney Sweeney, we learned on Wednesday.
The extract in question, published on social networks this summer, shows the artist washing a car, dressed in a jacket and a denim minishort, with the lyrics “I got good jeans like I’m Sydney”, a nod to a recent and controversial advertising of the actress.
But lawyers for the music company GRC Trust claim that the clip of this excerpt, which never led to the commercialization of a song, uses without authorization the music of “Win or Lose (We Tried)”, a soul ballad from the 70s by the American group Windy City.
“A dead end”
GRC Trust, which owns the rights to the title, is asking Lizzo for compensation because “she made profits that she would not have made without this infringement” of copyright.
In their complaint, filed Tuesday, the attorneys say they attempted to reach an informal settlement with Lizzo’s team, “but reached an impasse,” leading them to file a lawsuit.
The complaint asks the courts to prevent the distribution of Lizzo’s song and an amount equal to the profits made by the singer, “plus all GRC losses.” Lizzo is “surprised” by this allegation, according to a spokesperson.
“To be clear, the song has never been marketed or monetized, and to date no decision has been made regarding a possible future commercial release of the song,” this representative told AFP.
The clip went viral, as did the American Eagle jeans brand ads starring Sydney Sweeney that it referenced.
This campaign was assimilated by some to eugenic propaganda, because its slogan “Sydney has great jeans” (“Sydney has great jeans” in French), played with the ambiguity between “jeans” and “genes”, two words that are pronounced the same way in English.
The blonde, blue-eyed actress, known for her roles in the series “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria,” strutted around dressed in denim and posted a sign where the word “genes” was crossed out and replaced with “jeans.”
US President Donald Trump took advantage of the controversy on social media to defend the actress, “a registered Republican,” who according to him signed “the HOTTEST ad of the moment.”
Source: BFM TV
