It is not a Marshmallow World for Google this morning. Darlene Love, singer of “It’s a Marshmallow World,” filed a unique lawsuit against Google claiming the company used her voice without permission to promote its “dubious quality” Nexus phones and Marshmallow operating system.

Darlene Love is a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame artists known for such hits as “He’s a Rebel,” “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”, an Oscar-winning song from the 1946 Walt Disney film *Song of the South *and “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” Also, she is famous for the Christmas tune, “It’s a Marshmallow World”. You have probably heard it before and really became aggravated this holiday season when Google used the song nonstop to promote its new Nexus 5X and 6P phones featuring the Marshmallow operating system. If you want to be further tortured the commercial can be seen below. According to the complaint, the ad was played on television throughout America over 1,400 times and around the world on the Internet over 31,000,000 times. I would have sworn it was one billion times.

In a quick but terse four page complaint filed in Federal Court in California, Love claims that Google did not seek her permission to use the song featuring her vocals but Love does not sue for copyright infringement. Presumably, Love does not own the copyright to the song but claims Google took deliberate measures to avoid seeking her permission and she became the “involuntary pitchman for products of dubious quality.” Ouch. Further, Love claims that “an honest company, doing business in good faith” would not seek to deprive Love of the benefits from using her voice unlike Google. Love claims Google infringed her rights to publicity and seeks at least $75,000.

The question will be when she recorded the song, with producer Phil Spector, what rights did she give up and what did she keep. Love didn’t pull any punches with the nastily worded complaint that also called Google’s conduct “loathsome” at one point so this litigation might be drawn out for a while. Now that darn song is stuck in my head again…argh.