A Dallas songwriter is suing Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Nashville songwriters Chris DuBois and Kelley Lovelace, their record label, and publishing companies for copyright infringement, claiming they ripped off her song “Remind Me.” “Remind Me” is cowritten by Brad, Chris DuBois, and Kelley Lovelace, and was the 3rd single off Brad’s This Is Country Music album. “Remind Me” hit #1 on both the Billboard and Mediabase country airplay charts in late summer 2011, and has sold over 1.782 million downloads.
The songwriter claims it was stolen after it was heard performed around Nashville and at a songwriters workshop.
In a suit filed this week in U.S. District Court of Tennessee, Amy Bowen, who performs as Lizza Connor, says the song “Remind Me,” released by Paisley and Underwood in 2011, was copied from a song of the same name that Bowen wrote in 2007 and registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in December 2008.
“The two songs are substantially similar,” according to the suit, which is seeking at least $10 million in damages and requests that Bowen be declared the song’s owner.
Bowen performed “Remind Me” around Nashville for several years, according to the suit, and briefly attempted to pitch it to labels, publishers and artists in 2009 under a single song publishing deal that lasted 10 months. It was suggested that the song be recorded as a duet.
The parties “knowingly and willfully copied and prepared unauthorized and infringing derivative works” of her song, according to the suit.
Via Tennessean.com
Pierre Greenberg of the Nashville City Paper provides lyrics to the choruses of the two songs. See any of the substantial similarities claimed?
The plaintiff’s “Remind Me”:
All it takes is your kiss to remind me
All I need is your touch to remind me
Yesterday’s gone
Take me to the place we started from
When love was young
Baby, remind me
Brad & Carrie’s “Remind Me”
Been so long, bet you forget
The way I used to kiss your neck
Remind me, remind me
So on fire, so in love
Way back when we couldn’t get enough
Remind me, remind me.
EDIT: You can hear the story from Brad & Carrie about how “Remind Me” came together, from a mumbled hum over the phone from Brad to Carrie to rewritten verses to how it was fate for Carrie to detour to Nashville from LA instead of going back to Ottawa, here via Lon Helton of Country Countdown USA.
