Foo Fighters Take on Marvel's Men

02/21/2008 8:00 AM, E! Online


It's times like these in which the Foo Fighters call their lawyers.  

The Dave Grohl-fronted foursome sued Marvel Studios for copyright infringement Wednesday, accusing the production arm of the famed comic book empire of using two of their songs for a TV trailer without the band's permission. 

Per the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, "substantial excerpts" of the tunes "Best of You" and "Free Me," both off the 2005 album In Your Honor, were used in a teaser for the upcoming animated series Wolverine and the X-Men. 

The song samples "were copied directly from the Foo Fighters' sound recordings of those two songs" and people can watch the trailer online, the suit alleges. 

Wolverine and the X-Men's fellow producers, First Serve International, Toonz Animation India and First Serve Toonz were also named as defendants. 

Grohl, Nate Mendel, Taylor Hawkins and Chris Shifflett, fresh off of Grammy wins for Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Rock Album, are seeking unspecified damages, attorneys' fees and an injunction preventing Marvel from getting the best of them—i.e. using those songs--again. 

The suit was also filed on behalf of Roswell Records Inc., which owns the master recordings. 

Foo Fighters' latest album, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, has sold more than 530,000 copies and its number-one single, "The Pretender," spent a record 17 weeks atop Billboard's Modern Rock chart.