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"Girlfriend" is no rip-off, claims Avril Lavigne

July 10, 2007

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“False” Accusations Make Life ‘Complicated’ says Avril
Lavigne angrily responds to plagiarism suit
By Damara Popoola for Hollywood Today

HOLLYWOOD, CA (rushprnews) July 10, 2007 07 - Frequent chart-topper Avril Lavigne is making sure her fans know her side of the story when it comes to reports that she lifted parts of her hit song “Girlfriend.”

Late last week, Tommy Dunbar, founder of ‘70s band The Rubinoos, brought a lawsuit against Lavigne and her co-writer Luke Gottwald, claiming that her track “Girlfriend” copies his band’s 1979 song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” “We are not so naive as to chalk it up to some sort of cosmic coincidence,” Dunbar said in a statement Thursday. “The lyric, the metre, the rhythm, they’re identical,” . He continued,

Lavigne responded to the actions in her blog, saying to fans, “[The Rubinoos] have a song called ‘I Want To Be Your Boyfriend’ that has no musical similarities to the song ‘Girlfriend’ that Luke Gottwald and I wrote together. . . I had never heard this song in my life and their claim is based on five words!”

She added, “Off the top of my head, two other songs that I can immediately think of with this type of lyric are “Hey, hey, you, you get off of my cloud” by the Stones and “I Want to be your Boyfriend” by the Ramones. Simply put, I have been falsely accused of ripping their song off. Luke and I have done nothing wrong and there is no merit to their claim.”

Further support for Lavigne came from her manager Terry McBride who called the accusations an “unfortunate part of the business.” McBride asserted that after a musicologist examined both tracks ‘everything came back solidly in Lavigne’s favor.’ Still, he said their ultimate strategy would be to “settle for costs that will be less than defending.”

Also coupled with the accusations from Dunbar are reports that Lavigne’s former collaborator singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk made disparaging remarks about the Canadian singer’s credibility. In an interview with Performing Songwriter magazine , Kreviazuk said Lavigne will “cross the ethical line and no one says anything.” She added, “That’s why I’ll never work with her again.”

In her blog, Lavigne responded to Kreviazuk’s words, saying, “”Chantal’s comments are damaging to my reputation and a clear defamation of my character and I am considering taking legal action. Chantal has accused me of taking a song idea from her because I happen to have a song on my new record with the same title.”

Elaborating more on the issue, Lavigne said, “My decision to discontinue working with Chantal after co-writing together on my second record was simply based on the fact that we had no hits together. That is why her name is not on this record, despite her numerous attempts to be included, which were always denied. From my perspective this is a clear case of bitterness. Chantal is upset that she didn’t get to be a part of my record. She did email me after the article came out apologizing and I forgive her but I have to put the truth out there so my fans are not confused by these false accusations.”

The first court date for Lavigne and members of The Rubinoos is Aug. 28 in Oakland.

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