Celebrity Apprentice Contestant Aubrey O’day Sued for Copyright Infringement

Feb. 22, 2012 - PRLog -- Dallas based songwriter and independent recording artist Jackie Leigh has filed a lawsuit against Aubrey O’day, and Taurian “Adonis” Shropshire for copyright violations.  Also named in the suit are cable network Oxygen (parent company NBC) and Day by Day, the production entity responsible for the reality television program All About Aubrey.

Leigh’s suit documents the practice of “sampling” and “re-writing” that is rampant in the music industry.  O’day and Shropshire were filmed in a season finale episode of All About Aubrey using Leigh’s original music composition titled Addiction as a song for O’day to perform in an effort to revive her (O’day’s) stalled music career.  At the end of the episode entitled Show Stopin’ Solo, where Leigh’s song is stolen, O’day is awarded a recording contract.  

This lawsuit promises to shake up the music industry.  Shropshire’s and O’day’s actions are the only known instance of music industry insiders allowing themselves to be filmed taking copyrighted material on camera.

Shropshire is a three-time Grammy Award winning producer, and protégé of Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, who was hired by Leigh to produce several songs.  At the time, Leigh was a single mother, who scraped together the money to hire the best producer she could afford for her music.  

Leigh was in Babyface Enterprises’ studios in Los Angeles with Shropshire in March, 2010 recording a song later released as Addiction.  O’day dropped in on the session and discussed Leigh’s song Addiction with both Leigh and Shropshire.  Leigh was devastated to learn more than a year later that her song was used without permission or payment by her former producer, Shropshire and O’day.  Coincidentally, that same evening, O’day invited Leigh to accompany her to a grand opening of a milkshake restaurant in West Hollywood.  This was also filmed in O’day’s seemingly endless quest for media attention. O’day expected Leigh to hold her dogs while the paparazzi photographed her gyrating while mixing her “signature” milkshake.  O’day and Leigh were also accompanied by Quinton Aaron, actor, of the film The Blindside.  

Leigh was in her Dallas home in the fall of 2011 when a re-run of All About Aubrey was on the Oxygen television network.  Leigh says this, “I heard the music from my song, Addiction, in the first few minutes of the show and I was devastated.”

Leigh is represented by Ross Cunningham and John Pinkerton of Rose Walker.  When contacted, Cunningham said this about the federal lawsuit, "I find it appalling that someone with Adonis' credentials would so recklessly steal music for a storyline on a reality TV show.  We believe that Mr. Shropshire committed intellectual property theft by stealing a song from a young mother Jackie Leigh, just to give his friend and client, Aubrey O'Day, a new hot song to restart her fledgling career after being fired from Danity Kane.  There are federal copyright laws to protect songwriters like Ms. Leigh, and we plan to make sure that her rights are protected to the fullest extent of the law."

Links/Documentation:

1. The 43 page federal lawsuit is available in PDF format.  Please email: amanda@agenteinc.com. The filings are available for purchase on the web at this link:

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuits/copyright-lawsuits/cal...

2. From iTunes, search for “All About Aubrey.”  Click on the episode entitled, “Show Stoppin’ Solo.” Play the sample.  The music described by O’day, played by Adonis is the original score at the core of the suit.  The song is featured from 5:00 to 8:37.

3. Leigh accompanies O’day’s entourage after leaving the studio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=108iqfQasi0&feature=fvsr



Jackie Leigh at 1:15-1:19 mark.

4.  Music News Nashville, a respected digital trade publication, published a summary of Leigh’s lawsuit:

http://www.musicnewsnashville.com/aubrey-oday-and-adonis-...

5. TMZ report:

http://www.tmz.com/2012/02/21/aubrey-oday-lawsuit-sued/