USA TODAY: A judge has ordered PepsiCo Inc. and its advertising company to pay $250,000 to the 1950s doo-wop band The Flamingos for using their recording, “I Only Have Eyes For You” in a commercial without permission.
A federal judge in Chicago on Friday upheld an arbitrator’s decision in favor of the two surviving members of The Flamingos, Terry Johnson and Tommy Hunt, and the estates of the deceased members.
A collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists requires an advertiser to get permission and pay fees to the music publishers, the record labels and the artists themselves.
“In our case, they didn’t even ask,” San Francisco entertainment lawyer Steven Ames Brown said Monday.
Pepsi used the band’s best known 1959 hit in a television commercial that ran nationwide for about six months in 1997, Brown said.
