Zac Brown sued for unlawful use of a tree and being a bad boss

Kyle and Zac Brown in happier times - photo via Country Chart Talk

My philosophy is you aren't truly famous until you've been sued at least once or twice by disgruntled people.

Zac Brown and basically all his business entities and partners have had a lawsuit filed against them in Georgia by a man named Kyle Landas for copyright and trademark infringement.

On top of the infringement, which is the main part of the lawsuit, Landas, a former employee of Zac, claims that Zac's company provided unsafe work conditions, Zac's business manager was an asshole, and Zac liked to yell a lot (to paraphrase, of course).

The copyright/trademark infringement part of the lawsuit is in regards to a design that Landas, a designer who specializes in fine art memorialized in hand tooled or painted leather and whose art has been shown at the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Hank Williams Museum, created back in 2008 that he submitted to FarmAid for consideration of having the design used on custom leather guitar straps. 

Landas called this design Unity Tree. 

According to the lawsuit, in 2010, "Landas embossed Unity Tree onto a custom leather guitar strap, and on June 17, 2010, presented it to Brown backstage at a Zac Brown Band concert in Burlington, Iowa." 

Zac Brown was so impressed that he invited Landas to come and work for him at a leather studio in Georgia that he had recently purchased and re-named “Southern Hide.”  A month later Landas was shown the planned layout for the Zac Brown Band's upcoming album You Get What You Give which featured Landas' Unity Tree design, something he says he never gave them permission to use. 

According to the lawsuit, things seemed to go downhill from that point. In the lawsuit, it says that Landas complained several times about the working conditions and the fact that the Zac Brown Band was using his Unity Tree design without his permission and wouldn't compensate him despite agreeing to do such at some point. 

The lawsuit also alleges that one of Zac's company managers "belittled Landas and on more than one occasion told him to 'stop being a pussy'.”

Sounds like a pleasant situation all around. Landas also accuses Zac himself of becoming enraged and screaming at him several times during his employment. 

Landas was let go from Zac's company in August of 2012. 

According to the documents, Landas is seeking $150,000 as well as attorney's fees, although I'm not quite sure if this is the full amount he's seeking.

So far there's been no statement from Zac or any of his various companies listed in the lawsuit. 

You can read the court documents that are attached below. 

You can also read an interview from 2010 that Kyle did with Country Chart Talk here. 

Read full complaint here.

Comments

[Lance]

You don't even need to file for a copyright, it's automatic but filing gives you much better protection when you need to prove things in the court of law.

[Shannon]

Krystal, if you go to the attached lawsuit, it tells you when the image was copyrighted.

[Kirk Watkins]

Pictures of the copyrighted work and the accused infringment plus further discussion of the filing can be found at: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8744676007654066325#editor/target=post;postID=7335291051802746167

[krystal]

Well when exactly does he actually get this design copyrighted or trademarked? Nothing I have read as of yet states that he actually did.

[lorendasue]

The $150,000 is only the amount which is basically the standard copyright infringement sum. They really want a whole lot more than that, particularly treble damages, which means that an award is tripled. They're also seeking "exemplary damages," which is sometimes referred to as punitive damages. This complaint does what a well-written complaint should do - make the reader believe that the plaintiff has a strong case.It will be interesting to see what the defendants' reply is. It will also be interesting (at least to me) to see if the claims made based on state law (as opposed to the federal copyright and Lanham Act claims) are decided by the federal court. I'll be interested in the further actions in this matter.

[Wayne Walker]

OMG what happened to Zac??? he used to be one of the coolest dudes in music. I've heard from so many people in ATL how he has changed but what a way to treat an loyal employee DISGUSTING!!!