Here's case number 1,289,948 of the old "company doesn't properly license a piece of music for a commercial, makes a ripoff of it instead" story. In this case, the ripped-off artist is SOHN, the British-raised and Vienna-based electronic producer who released his debut album Tremors earlier this year. The ripper-offer is Audi, who used a track that sounded a lot like SOHN's rippling single "Lessons" for a commercial. As NME points out, SOHN noticed, and he had things to say about it:
.@Audi feels like you may have "borrowed" from one of my tunes... Can I "borrow" one of your cars? http://t.co/N3hkCzxVun #lessons
— SOHN (@SOHN) September 22, 2014
Here's the offending commercial:
[videoembed size="full_width" alignment="center"][/videoembed]
And the video for the "Lessons":
[videoembed size="full_width" alignment="center"][/videoembed]
That may be legally actionable, or it may not be, but one of those things sure does sound like the other.
