Aimeé
Bill Murray has moved on from comedic acting to the much more personal passion project of selling golf shirts and other paraphernalia. Recently, he started hawking his Zero Hucks Given polo shirt and advertised it with the song “Listen to the Music” by the Doobie Brothers. Maybe golf shirts don’t pay as well as film roles or maybe Bill Murray thought that no one would mess with Bill Murray—but he apparently didn’t pay for the rights to the song. Or get permission to use it.
Bad boy.
Probably none of us would know about that if it weren’t for a hilarious letter written by the band’s lawyer Peter T. Paterno to Mr. Murray which was quickly circulated across Twitter.
It reads:
Dear Mr. Murray:
We’re writing on behalf of our clients, the Doobie Brothers. The Doobie Brothers perform and recorded the song Listen to the Music, which Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers wrote. It’s a fine song. I know you agree because you keep using it in ads for your Zero Hucks Given golf shirts. However, given that you haven’t paid to use it, maybe you should change the name to “Zero Bucks Given.”
We understand that you’re running other ads using music from other of our clients. It seems like the only person who uses our clients’ music without permission more than you do is Donald Trump.
This is the part where I’m supposed to cite the United States Copyright Act, excoriate you for not complying with some subparagraph that I’m too lazy to look up and threaten you with eternal damnation for doing so. But you already earned that with those Garfield movies. And you already know that you can’t use music in ads without paying for it.
We’d almost be OK with it if the shirts weren’t so damn ugly. But it is what it is. So in the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, “Au revoir Golfer. Et payez!”
Sincerely,
Peter T. Paterno
of King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano LLP
Wow, being compared to Donald Trump and a Caddyshack reference? That’s gotta hurt. While Murray still has his fans, it’s possible that Peter Paterno has even more now, because people absolutely loved this message to pay up or shut up:
IP lawyers:
Pack it up. Someone has written the greatest IP demand letter of all time. That’s it. It’s all over.https://t.co/RmqqHcsU1A
— Cyrus Farivar // @[email protected] (@cfarivar) September 24, 2020
Bill Murray receives a legal demand from the Doobie Brothers. And it’s everything you’d want it to be… pic.twitter.com/R1L99yZSBj
— Eriq Gardner ✍️ (@eriqgardner) September 24, 2020
https://twitter.com/questlove/status/1309479628973711366
Great demand letter or the greatest demand letter? https://t.co/W0KC7XQCkb
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) September 25, 2020
I am going to find someone to sue
Just so I can hire this guy to write the demand letterBrilliant https://t.co/woboHmucCJ
— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) September 25, 2020
I would like my lawyers to write all of their letters in this tone from here on out. https://t.co/HVSO7C0Mrj
— Minh Ngo (@minhtngo) September 25, 2020
Give up those bucks, Bill Murray.
