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NBC, NFL and Carrie Underwood Hit With ‘Sunday Night Football’ Lawsuit

Jun 20, 2019  •  Post A Comment

The stakes are high in a lawsuit filed against NBC, the NFL and country singer Carrie Underwood over the song Underwood has been singing to introduce NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” broadcasts. The show has been a huge ratings draw for the network.

The AP reports that the lawsuit was filed Wednesday by a songwriting team that alleges the song was stolen and “slightly modified” before it was used as last season’s introduction to “Sunday Night Football.”

“The lawsuit in Manhattan federal court noted that Underwood’s ‘Game On’ even carried the same title as the song singer Heidi Merrill of Newport Beach, California, put on an internet music video two years ago,” the AP reports. “The lawsuit sought unspecified damages, saying the copyright was violated on the song that had been pitched to Underwood’s representatives in 2017.”

The plaintiffs are a songwriting team made up of four individuals, including Merrill, from California, Tennessee and Sweden.

“Merrill pitched the song to Underwood’s producer in August 2017 during a conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where Underwood lives, the lawsuit said,” the AP reports, noting that Merrill was informed in October 2017 that Underwood’s team had opted to pass.

“The lawsuit claimed that the song that introduced 17 NFL Sunday night games through the season beginning in September 2018 ‘is substantially — even strikingly — similar, if not identical,’ to the song Underwood’s team had rejected,” the AP adds.


3 Comments

  1. As much as I like Carrie Underwood, I actually prefer Heidi Merrill’s version. I like her voice, her looks, and her attitude – all better. I don’t think that there is that much similarity (except for the title) to warrant a lawsuit, though.

  2. To Everyone:

    The song isn’t even close to the song Carrie sings and Carrie is a hot Mama. Get a life to the attorneys who filed the suit and I can write that as I am one, who, incidentally represented NFL players through my business transactional and litigation law practice as a National Football League Players Association Certified Contract Advisor for 26 years and proudly chanpioned free agency for NFL players during the 1987 Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations between the NFL and the NFLPA… please see my article entitled “Free Agency and the National Football League” at https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1143&context=elr published in the Los Angeles Loyola Law School Entertainment Law Journal at the behest of the Editor of the Journal.

    Go Carrie!

    Bruce

  3. Pretty obvious that is where Carrie got the song from. Oh, and Bruce, I bet you think you’re pretty slick and sly with the free plug for yourself. What’s the matter, too cheap to get a real ad on tvweek!!!!!

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