Plagiarism claims in the pop world have been running rampant recently, in the form of both formal lawsuits as well as snide jabs in the media. Avril Lavigne, for example, just got slapped with a lawsuit alleging she plagiarized a Rubinoos's 1979 single, "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend."
Lavigne's manager, Terry McBride, went so far as to order up a study by musicologists, who found no significant similarities between chords, melodies, lyrics, or meter. But then there are the lyrics: the Rubinoos's song refrain is "Hey! Hey! You! You! I want to be your boyfriend." Lavigne's is "Hey! Hey! You! You! I wanna be your girlfriend." The Rubinoos songwriters aren't the first to accuse Lavigne of being criminally unoriginal, though. Singer Chantal Kreviazuk stated in Performing Songwriter magazine that Lavigne plagiarized one of her songs, though she isn't pressing charges.