ABKCO Records, which owns the rights to the master recordings of the Rolling Stones up to 1970, has sued Behr Paint, alleging copyright infringement over the use of the group’s 1966 song “Paint It, Black” in one of its online commercials.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, Southern Division, and obtained by Variety, alleges that “Behr, without ABKCO’s authorization, without compensating ABKCO, and for its sole commercial benefit, reproduced, distributed, publicly performed, transmitted, prepared a derivative work embodying, and otherwise exploited the ABKCO Recording in a commercial advertisement to promote BEHR’s products and business.”
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It adds, “Behr is a sophisticated, multi-billion-dollar corporation that, upon information and belief, routinely licenses recorded music for its commercials, yet it inexplicably chose in this case not to seek a license for ‘Paint It, Black.’”
ABKCO is seeking unspecified damages as a result. The ad appears to have been removed from Behr’s robust Instagram archive, although unofficial versions can be found online.
Variety has contacted Behr representatives for comment.
William Pittenger, General Counsel for ABKCO noted, “The type of commercial use exploited by Behr undergoes some of the highest level of scrutiny in the world of music licensing and carries some of the most substantial licensing fees. Because of Behr’s decision not to request and obtain the necessary license, this commercial brand association has been forced upon ABKCO and the artists without any consideration or compensation.”
The online ad, posted to Behr’s official Instagram account, shows a house being painted not black but a greyish-green color while the song plays. In one version of the clip found on Instagram, a brief snippet of dialogue from the Martin Scorsese 1989 film “Goodfellas,” which features the song, is heard, suggesting that the recording was taken from the film, potentially resulting in further copyright issues.
“Paint It, Black,” written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966 and is one of the Rolling Stones’ biggest hits, although its lyrics — written from the perspective of a person whose outlook is so dark that he wants to paint everything black — are unusual for an ad with an otherwise upbeat tone.
ABKCO, which was founded by the late former Stones and Beatles business manager Allen Klein, has a long history of aggressively protecting the copyrights it owns and oversees. Perhaps the most famous was over the Verve’s 1997 hit “Bittersweet Symphony,” which samples a five-second portion of a cover of the Stones’ song “The Last Time” by the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra. The Stones had agreed to license the segment in exchange for 50 percent of the royalties, but ABKCO claimed the clip was longer and violated the agreement. It filed a successful plagiarism case that resulted in the Verve relinquishing all royalties and publishing rights to ABKCO, and the song credit reverted to Jagger and Richards. However, this decision was reversed in 2019 when the two Stones signed over the publishing on “Bittersweet Symphony” to Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft, allowing all future royalties to go to him.
ABKCO is represented by Benjamin S. Akley and Shamar Toms-Anthony of the law firm Pryor Cashman LLP.
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