Artists getting ripped off in commercials is a practice that dates back probably even farther than the 1988 Tom Waits lawsuit. He won 2.5 million from Audi because this commercial tried to sound like him (easiest lawsuit win ever). Recently, it seems like a lot of indie artists have been the target. Who makes these? Is there a team of ripoff musicians in a secret ad agency lab churning these songs out? I used shazam on the songs and the only one that came up was the Beach House ripoff. It says the song is by a band called Sniffy Dog. According to wikipedia Sniffy Dog is a production group, but it doesn’t say anything about their secret lab. See the seven commercials below and compare for yourself:

The Black Keys

Pizza hut commercial:



The Black Keys – Gold On The Ceiling



Beach House

After getting turned down by Beach House for weeks the ad agency went ahead and put out this Volkswagen commercial:



Beach House – Take Care



Grizzly Bear

Troy University commercial:



Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks:



Fleet Foxes

Kipsta commercial (Do you think they hired the guy from Feel Foxes Sing?):



Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal

Arcade Fire

Microsoft commercial:



Arcade Fire – Wakeup



The xx

Nokia commercial:



The xx – VCR:



LCD Soundsystem

T.G.I. Friday’s commercial:



LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk Is Playing At My House

