Toyota in a lawsuit over their BB King commercial

I didn't see any mention of Toyota on the website so I thought I'd post this.  BB's last public appearance was for a Toyota commercial.  Someone finds one of BB's guitars and return it to him.  This sort of happened in real life and the person is suing Toyota over copyright infringement.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/0 … s-away-89/

One of those was ES-355 prototype for a commemorative production Lucille made by Gibson’s custom shop to be presented to King on his 80th birthday in 2005. King used it in performances until 2009, when it was stolen from his home in Las Vegas.

One of the sayings attributed to B.B. King is “a guitar can’t play the blues if it ain’t been in a pawn shop,” reflecting the economic tribulations of working musicians. Eric Dahl is a guitar player and collector who had been checking out pawn shop guitars for decades before coming across a Gibson with “Lucille” on the headstock in a Las Vegas pawn shop in 2009. As indicated above, Gibson made production versions of the 80th birthday Lucille, so the pawn shop and Dahl likely had no way of knowing that it was stolen. Dahl paid $2,161.99, slightly under market for a production Lucille (one of King’s personal ES-335 Lucille’s is currently advertised at $55,000).

Inspecting the guitar, Dahl found the word “prototype” and researching its provenance led him to Gibson verifying that it was the first prototype for the commemorative 80th birthday Lucille, the same guitar that King played in concert with for years. In November 2009, Dahl arranged to met with King personally and agreed to return the guitar to its rightful owner without compensation. It was, after all, stolen from King. In appreciation, King had arranged for Gibson to provide Dahl with his own Gibson Lucille, which King autographed and presented to the guitar collector. While not quite as valuable as one of King’s personal Lucilles, King’s gift to Dahl has it’s own unique provenance and value.

Dahl didn’t just get a very cool collectible guitar with unmatched provenance out of the story. He also wrote a book about the guitars King had used called B.B. King’s Lucille and the Loves Before Her. Three of the copyrighted book’s chapters tell the story of the stolen and returned Lucille.

After the Corolla commercials started airing, Dahl filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court over copyright infringement, saying that Gibson personnel who were consulted by Toyota and the ad’s producers were aware of his book and those same Gibson employees later confirmed the commercial was based on the account in Dahl’s book.

“Fatal to his claim, Mr. Dahl conflates the concept of the expression of the story (protectable) with the basic idea of the story (not protectable). The concept of a musician who loses a musical instrument which is later found and returned is not unique to plaintiff nor can he claim copyright protection over all such stories. Nor does the fact that the musician in both stories is Mr. King change that result; as a matter of law, plaintiff must point to the expression of his own story in the ad, not some common facts, to make out a claim,” Toyota argued.

In March of this year, U.S. District Judge James Mahan disagreed, saying that while a general idea cannot be copyrighted, the unique manner in which it is expressed can be protected. “Defendants misapply this rule of law to plaintiff’s complaint. Although general themes and ideas are not copyrightable, parallels to more specific elements of a particular expression are protected,” the federal judge ruled in his opinion. Judge Mahan further ruled that Dahl “adequately alleges similarities between the plot, characters and sequence of events, among other factors, of the two works” and allowed the case to proceed, also denying Toyota’s motion to not have to cover Dahl’s legal expenses in case he wins.