Hey Hey, You You: The Epic Controversy

"Hey Hey, You You, I don't like your girlfriend." A phrase I'm sure most of us have heard, but a big question on many people minds is whether or not it's plagiarized. Yes, 1970's power pop band The Rubinoos has brought up a copyright lawsuit against Lavigne claiming that her song "girlfriend" is a complete rip-off of their song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Now, one could see how these songs are similar, for a few seconds at least, but is it truly copyrighted? Avril Lavigne claims that she's never even heard of The Rubinoos before learning they were trying to sue her. I'm going to try to pick apart these songs and give my most educated opinion on this (mind you I missed this part of class)

Let's start out with the beat of this song, it was one thing that claimed to be suspiciously similar to The Rubinoo's song, now that, is very understandable, because it's an immensely popular beat used often by Southern California "surf-punk" bands. But Avril is Canadian you say? doesn't she live in southern California? in my personal opinion, I'm going to have to say, I've heard enough music to know that the beat of these 2 songs is a very generally used beat, and as far as I know, no one, at least no one who's suing Avril, owns the copyright to it.

Now on to the lyrics, Yet again “Hey hey, you you” a common form of annunciation in songs. There have been plenty of artists who have sang in this way; it was only a matter of time until the same words were used. To add to that, it’s two lines of song, can that really be so much harm? Personally, The Rubinoos need to think a little bit more rational for a minute and realize how common the lyrics and beat is.

Avril Lavigne has stated she had never even heard of the Rubinoos, there was also a professional musicologist hired by Avril’s record company who studied both songs extensively and concluded that there was no copyright infringement, a tiny similarity, but nothing too noticeable or worth disputing. If anyone really wants something to talk about, we can turn this all around on the Rubinoos, does anyone seem to notice how the Rubinoos just decided to reform in 1999, right around the time Avril was just starting to make a name for herself. How do we know that the Rubinoos never copyrighted anything, after all, they did release a record made entirely of covers, were all those credited? I guess no one will know, until lawsuits are filed…