American Idol's most successful alumni is coming under fire, along with country singer Brad Paisley, for allegedly plagiarizing their hit duet "Remind Me." Lawyers for Carrie Underwood and Paisley insist the suit in frivolous, because the person claiming they wrote the song, no longer has rights to it.
Country music songwriter Amy Brown, known professionally as Lizza Connor, traveled to Nashville to attend a "Country Music Songwriting Workshop" back in 2008.
During the 14-week long class, she composed and performed a song titled "Remind Me".
As it turns out, Brad Paisley collaborator Charles Dubois was one of the advisors at the workshop, and just three short years later Paisley and Underwood released their own track with the exact same title.
Brown feels like more than just the names are similar; and her lawsuit claims that the two songs sound identical to one another.
An official attorney's statement explains that Brown is completely mistaken about anything and everything she has at this point or will at any time in the future allege about Paisley and Underwood (via Radar Online):
"Defendants (Paisley and Underwood) deny any wrongful conduct, omissions, infringement or any other activities alleged by Plaintiff in this District or elsewhere or that they are liable to the Plaintiff for any claims."
Charles Dubious is countersuing, not because accusations damage his reputation, but because Brown doesn't deserve to have the rights to the song whether she wrote it or not.
Dubious' nuanced position was laid out succinctly at Radar Online:
"When Bowen attended the songwriting workshop, she had to sign a consent agreement, which had a provision about submission of one's songs - that basically gave up her rights to sue for trademark infringement."
Oh, you swindled it out of her fair and square, now that's different.
