June 11, 2007 at 02:13:00 PM | more stories by this author
Charlie Wilson claims Heineken, Capitol Records, and its parent label EMI used song without permission.
For Charlie Wilson, a series of Heineken Light TV ads were the last straw.
The R&B veteran, best known as the cofounder and frontman for the Gap Band, is suing Capitol Records and its parent label EMI for licensing the Snoop Dogg song "Beautiful," on which Wilson appears, to Heineken for the ads without his permission.
In a lawsuit filed late last week in US District Court in Manhattan, Wilson claims that portions of "Beautiful" featuring vocal performances by Wilson and Williams were licensed by Capitol Records for the commercial without permission, the suit said.
Wilson is not credited as a producer or writer on the track, as Pharrell Williams produced and he, Snoop Dogg, and Williams' Neptunes partner Chad Hugo cowrote it. Wilson also claims that if Capitol disputes his coownership of "Beautiful," then the label, EMI, and Heineken are guilty of copyright infringement.
Wilson also charged EMI had not paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits gained for "Beautiful" and for another song, "You've Got What I Want," which Wilson recorded with Snoop Dogg, Jelly Roll, Ludacris, and Goldie Loc. Capitol Music Group spokeswoman Jeanne Meyer declined to comment on the lawsuit.




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