Judge OKs guitar collector's copyright suit over Toyota ad featuring B.B. King
Guitar collector Eric Dahl made a spectacular find when he purchased at a pawn shop in 2009 a prototype Gibson Lucille that he later discovered had been stolen from B.B. King. Rewarded in person by the blues legend with an autographed Gibson Lucille when he returned King’s own instrument, Dahl later wrote about the experience in a 2013 book, B.B. King’s Lucille and the Loves Before Her.
Now the Las Vegas man is suing Toyota Motor Sales USA over a television commercial that features B.B. King and a story line involving a woman returning a stolen guitar to him. The plot of the Camry ad, Dahl says, was taken from his own published account. In the ad, which can be seen on YouTube, the woman says she found the guitar among the contents of a storage locker she purchased.
On Tuesday a federal judge in Las Vegas denied Toyota’s motion to dismiss the copyright complaint, finding that Dahl had adequately alleged a cause of action, reports Courthouse News.
Toyota had argued that Dahl was suing over an uncopyrightable idea, rather than his expression of that idea. “Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, methods of operation, and/or any expression that is not original to the author,” the company wrote in its dismissal motion.
However, U.S. District Judge James Mahan saw the case differently. While a general idea cannot be copyrighted, the specific manner in which it is expressed can be, the judge wrote. Dahl, he said, “adequately alleges similarities between the plot, characters and sequence of events, among other factors, of the two works.”
Related coverage:
Premier Guitar: “B.B. King’s Stolen ‘Lucille’ Found and Returned”
Courthouse News: “Author Says Toyota Stole His B.B. King Story”
