Carly Rae Jepsen and Scooter Brawn, the manager of both she and mega pop-star Justin Bieber, settled with Aza Highspeed in the Hunky Santa / Call Me Maybe plagiarism lawsuit that was kept mostly quiet by the media, but not this blogger. And from reports, AZA was made “very, very happy.” I must admit, I didn’t think she had a chance:
AZA Highspeed is a singer I first met at the 2010 Night Of 100 Stars Oscars Party, as she’s a client of acclaimed Beverly Hills PR maven Ed Lozzi, who helps produce the annual Oscar Sunday viewing party:
Lozzi and AZA’s lawyer Barry K. Rothman claimed that “AZA owns exclusive rights in the creative work of “Hunky Santa”, which is a musical composition written by AZA embodied on an album entitled “High Speed”. AZA Productions filed standard Form SR on February 14th, 2010 therefor entitling “Hunky Santa” to Federal Copyright protection.
“The basis of this law suit is the unauthorized infringement of my client’s intellectual property rights and callous disregard for her rights by these collaborative song writers, a recording artist, and a record label by Justin Bieber. My client’s lyrics were sampled without approval or consent with lyrics that are identical or substantially similar to “Call Me Maybe”. My client is seeking damages for this actionable infringement”, said Barry K. Rothman, attorney for AZA Highspeed.
AZA said “I’m shocked and surprised that these people wanted to sample my lyrics on “Call Me Maybe”. They didn’t ask me for permission-they just stole it. That’s why I filed this law suit. When I first listened to it on the radio while driving my car, I almost got into an accident. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing”, said Ms. Highspeed.
Compare the songs for yourself. This is “Hunky Santa”:
Now here’s Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.”
Regardless of what you think, Carly Rae Jepsen And Scooter Brawn paid AZA, and from the conversations I’ve had, the amount was enough to make AZA “Very, Very happy.”
Mr. Lozzi said:
“Zennie, when we broke this story with TMZ back in November all hell broke lose. Justin Bieber’s manager and Carly Rae Jepsen were sued in Federal Court then hunted down and served papers after a cat and mouse game of hide and seek – and then our client Aza was defamed, attacked and ridiculed. But guess what??-THE CASE HAS BEEN SETTLED. …there IS hope for the little guy after all. Settled-$$$$$$ !!! Of course they wanted the amount kept quiet! Lets just say that AZA is VERY VERY HAPPY !!!
The End Of Abuse
Regardless of the opinion, the one aspect of this case this blogger found very upsetting was the immature way AZA Highspeed was treated. Some media publications took to referring to her in ways that were sexist and nationalist, and will not be repeated here. Here YouTube video was the target of many inappropriate comments, and the video itself was flagged in an attempt to have it taken down for arguably ridiculous reasons surrounding the idea that it was inappropriate for the same demographic that watches the “Call Me Maybe” video, with its sex-tilted scenes.
All of that seemed to only harden AZA’s resolve, and when all was said and done, she prevailed.
Stay tuned.