Joan Jett does not love getting ripped off

Rocker Joan Jett’s record label has sued a payroll software company for ripping off her famous song, “I Love Rock N’ Roll” in a TV commercial.

Paycom, the payroll software company, had approached Jett’s Blackheart Records Group in July asking to use the song for an ad campaign. But both parties could not come to an agreement.

But two months later they aired a commercial that ended with an exact replica of Joan Jett’s song, down to the its iconic drumbeat and distorted guitar riff. You can check it out here.

And in case you are not familiar with Joan Jett’s famous song about liking rock and roll, you can watch it here.

“Paycom digitally manipulated its version … to precisely replicate Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ recording in order to unfairly profit from the goodwill Blackheart has developed in Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ recording of ‘I Love Rock N’ Roll,’” according to court papers.

Even a casual listener can identify all the key aspects of Joan Jett’s song in Paycom’s version. So much that “various individuals have contacted Blackheart to ask whether Blackheart and/or Jett is affiliated with and/or endorsing Paycom,” the lawsuit said.

Paycom is unfortunately no stranger to copyright infringement. Its current logo, a simple shape, was borne out of a lawsuit brought against its previous logo by National Finance Partners Corporation (NFP). NFP, an advisory and brokerage services company based in New York, sued Paycom in 2014 over the companies' similar logos. The logos both feature similar shades of green and comparable shapes.

Although Paycom and NFC are from different industries, Paycom adopted its logo in 2014 while NFC has been using the logo since 2010. U.S. District Court Judge Matthew F. Kennelly ordered Paycom on 6 July 2015 to stop using its interlocking-shape, green logo and pay NFP US$20,000 to cover the company's legal costs. Paycom now uses a logo with no interlocking shapes.

The song that Paycom paid someone (cheap) to create is a sound-alike of Joan Jett’s song, but Jett might want to think about re-recording her song, like most of her contemporaries are doing. Bands such as Wang Chung, Twisted Sister, Squeeze, Def Leppard and Jeff Lynne’s ELO have re-recorded some of their classic songs, not for fun, but to earn more profit from licensing them in television ads and movies.

This is because these songs were under the purview of contracts signed at a time when labels made sure they owned the long-term rights to recordings, and profited most from it. With the new recordings of their songs, the bands gain the power to negotiate with ad agencies and music supervisors, with a view to earning more money. If Joan Jett had a re-recorded version of her song, perhaps she could find it easier to come to an agreement with Paycom when they approached her.

But that’s provided she clears the rights with the original writer and copyright owner of the song, Alan Merrill, who used to be in the band The Arrows, that unfortunately never made it big. So Joan Jett’s most famous song is actually a cover of another song.

You can listen to Merrill’s original here.