The painter behind a popular mural in the Gulch is suing Christian singer-songwriter Hollyn for posting a music video to YouTube that prominently featured the mural.

Muralist Jason Woodside, whose has painted large murals in cities across the world, claims Hollyn violated his copyright protection on "the Gulch" mural, located at the corner of 12th Avenue South and Laurel street.

Woodside said Hollyn went a step further than merely filming her video for "¡Hola!" without his permission. Woodside claims Hollyn also used design elements from the colorful design in her branding.

In addition to Hollyn, whose real name is Holly Marie Miller, Woodside named record label Gotee Records and the video production company Wander Creative as defendants. Gotee was founded by Christian music heavyweight TobyMac.

Woodside's murals have been installed in New York, London and Paris and his designs have been licensed to or are in the process of being licensed to enormous brands such as Adidas, Pepsi, Google and Pixar.

The lawsuit highlights a possible copyright conflict between the city's unyielding boom of public murals and an array of artists who are likely to film music videos in front of them. Nashville murals have appeared in many music videos, but this is the first lawsuit in the city where an artist is seeking copyright protection.

The video for "¡Hola!" has already been removed from YouTube and replaced with a simple audio only version. But, within one week of posting the video, Hollyn earned over 110,000 views and the updated version has generated at least 2 million views, according to the lawsuit.

After posting the song online, Hollyn sold t-shirts with colorful wording somewhat similar to Woodside's mural, according to the lawsuit.

A young Christian pop artist whose career took off after she appeared on "American Idol," Hollyn incorporated colorful branding and positive messaging before she released the song.

"Gotee and Hollyn continue to use branding and promotional materials that passoff the Plaintiffs’ brand as their own because it is valuable, notwithstanding the confusion and deception it causes consumers and the significant harm caused to Mr. Woodside and Woodside Studios," Woodside claims in the lawsuit.

Gotee Records general manager Joey Elwood said the label took down Hollyn's video shortly after they were contacted by Woodside's team.

"We're right now in the process of understanding what the lawsuit is," Elwood said. "We were talking to these people over a year ago, and we have not heard from them for over a year. We're trying to figure out what is really happening.

"We took the video down immediately when we were asked to take it down, and it hasn't been up for over a year. So we're trying to figure out what the problem is."

Woodside is suing for damages, including all the profits that Hollyn and Gotee earned from the video and merchandise.

Hollyn could be immediately reached for comment. Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and nrau@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter @tnnaterau.