Metallica Sues Over Chords (Not)
Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2003 12:05 pm
http://www.msnbc.com/news/930659.asp?0cv=LB10
Striking a chord
Nothing gets by those clever dudes in Metallica. So when members of the heavy-metal group heard a song by the Canadian band Unfaith, they knew they detected something familiar: the chords E and F.
So they sued.
Metallica filed a trademark infringement suit against the Unfaith in the U.S. district court in central California earlier this week, alleging that the use of the E and F chords causes “confusion, deception and mistake in the minds of the public.”
“People are going to get on our case again for this, but try to see it from our point of view just once,” Metallica’s Lars Ulrich told MTV. “We’re not saying we own those two chords, individually — that would be ridiculous. We’re just saying that in that specific order, people have grown to associate E, F with our music.”
Striking a chord
Nothing gets by those clever dudes in Metallica. So when members of the heavy-metal group heard a song by the Canadian band Unfaith, they knew they detected something familiar: the chords E and F.
So they sued.
Metallica filed a trademark infringement suit against the Unfaith in the U.S. district court in central California earlier this week, alleging that the use of the E and F chords causes “confusion, deception and mistake in the minds of the public.”
“People are going to get on our case again for this, but try to see it from our point of view just once,” Metallica’s Lars Ulrich told MTV. “We’re not saying we own those two chords, individually — that would be ridiculous. We’re just saying that in that specific order, people have grown to associate E, F with our music.”