Lavigne settles infringement claim

Avril Lavigne's people have reached a settlement with two songwriters who claimed her 2007 hit 'Girlfriend' plagiarized one of their songs. As previously reported, Tommy Dunbar and James Gangwer from seventies US band Rubinoos claimed the hit single borrowed from their 1979 song 'I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend'. Lavigne denied any knowledge of the Rubinoos song, and her manager, Nettwerk's Terry McBride, said he had consulted a musicologist who said there were no similarities between the two hits. But he admitted at the time that he might look to settle with the Rubinoos songwriters rather than enter into a costly legal battle. The details of the settlement between Lavinge and Dunbar/Gangwer are confidential, so it's not known if the former has actually accepted any liability for copyright infringement. I suspect not.