The Black Keys Sue Agency Over Song

The tune 'Tighten Up' was used to promote a New Jersey bank

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The popular blues-rock duo The Black Keys hammered New York agency Della Femina Rothschild Jeary & Partners with two separate federal lawsuits last week for using their hit song “Tighten Up” to promote a New Jersey bank during the Grammy Awards without permission.

The group is asking judges in Nashville and Manhattan, where the suits are filed, to bar the company from continuing to air the ad.

Nonesuch Records filed the suits on behalf of the band, charging the agency and Valley National Bank with poaching its song without asking or compensating the musicians.

“For at least a two-week period in February 2011 coinciding with the period leading up to and the aftermath of the 2011 Grammy Awards, the Agency and VNB knowingly created and ran a television commercial incorporating significant portions of [Tighten Up] without having sought or obtained a license from Nonesuch to do so,” according to a suit filed in Tennessee,...

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