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Jason Mraz settles dispute over Coors Instagram post

By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 6 May 2020

Jason Mraz has more or less settled his copyright dispute with Coors Light which centred on an Instagram post made by the drinks brand last year.

Said Instagram post featured a clip of him performing at California’s BeachLife Festival. In a lawsuit filed last December the musician said that Coors had not sought permission to include a thirteen second snippet of him singing 2008 hit ‘I’m Yours’ in its promotional video.

As well as the short snippet of Mraz performing his song, the clip also contained Coors Light branding and was accompanied by the caption “Kicking off summer with the World’s Most Refreshing Beer at the Beachlife Festival”.

He also said that, had the company sought permission, as it should have done, they wouldn’t have got it. “Due to the family friendly nature of the song”, the lawsuit stated, “Mraz has never licensed the composition for use by alcohol companies or other adult-oriented products and would never do so”.

The Beachlife Festival itself was subsequently pulled into the dispute. Coors said that it had a sponsorship deal with the event that allowed it to use footage from the festival in its social media. However, the festival hadn’t sought the required artist approvals to allow that footage to be used, which constituted misrepresentation in its contractual agreement.

So, that was all quite messy. Anyway, the good news is that this three-way squabble is seemingly at an end. A filing with the Californian courts on Monday said that a provisional settlement had been reached and that that should be formalised in the next 60 days.

No details of the settlement have been shared, so we don’t know if lots of dosh will be exchanged.