BREAKING NEWS: We are currently trying to get information at this time, but according to two at least two blog sources, the Foo Fighters are taking legal action against RE/MAX – Australia in the Federal court over the use of a “riff” created by them in an advertisement aired on Australian TV. Accounts of the legal action are here. According to these accounts, the band band is seeking unspecified damages in the Federal court.
We currently have calls in to all parties involved and will update this post as more information arrives. If true, what this does emphasize is that a) regardless of whether you hire an independant party to create your advertising copy, it needs to be vetted to make sure that no copyright issues are involved. b) even when you are careful, copyrights can be challenged where people have such open access to each other. (In this case, it was apparently a comment made in an online forum that led to the issue.)
According to the blog post linked above, Nicholas Thiele, RE/MAX’s director of their Australia region, claims that they would not knowingly infringe on a copyright.
More news as it arrives…
I highly doubt a massive international company like Re/Max would use music in their adverts that they didn’t have any rights too!!! Seriously! I would be looking at the company/agency that produced the piece originally that Re/Max purchased to their knowledge at the time as ‘an original’
Re/Max are huge and have no need to rip anyone off!