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Jason Mraz sues Coors Light over Instagram video
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 5 December 2019
Jason Mraz has sued Coors Light over an advert it posted to Instagram earlier this year that featured a clip of him performing at a Californian festival. He says the drinks firm didn’t seek permission to include the thirteen second snippet of him singing 2008 hit ‘I’m Yours’.
According to a lawsuit filed with the California federal court yesterday, Mraz performed at the BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach on 4 May this year. Coors Light then posted the clip of his performance to Instagram later that month. The video 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”.
The musician says that the beer company never asked for permission to include the snippet of his performance in its promotional video. And if it had, he would have declined to provide said permission. “Due to the family friendly nature of the song”, the lawsuit states, “Mraz has never licensed the composition for use by alcohol companies or other adult-oriented products and would never do so”.
The lawsuit not only accuses Coors Light of copyright infringement – for which he seeks statutory damages of $150,000 per infringement – but also claims various other breaches of the law by the drinks firm, including a violation of his publicity and image rights. All of which would result in a much big damages claim if Mraz was successful in court.
We now await to see how Coors Light owner MillerCoors responds.
