Dion is heading into a legal face-off with the people behind “Fallout 4.”
Singer/songwriter Dion DiMucci has filed suit against ZeniMax Media over the use of his classic song “The Wanderer” in ads for the video game, according to court papers obtained by TheWrap.
In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, DiMucci says that he never signed off ZeniMax using “The Wanderer” for the “Fallout 4” ads, which the lawsuit calls “repugnant.”
According to the suit, DiMucci entered an agreement via UMG Recordings to license the song for the “Fallout 4” commercials.
However, the suit says, under the agreement DiMucci had the right to separately bargain with ZeniMax for a better rate, and to prohibit the use of the song unless his terms were met first. The suit says that ZeniMax failed to separately bargain with DiMucci, and failed to obtain his advance consent before the commercials ran.
The consent portion is important, the lawsuit says, because the “Fallout 4” ads were “objectionable” due to their violence.
“Defendant’s Commercials were objectionable because they featured repeated homicides in a dark, dystopian landscape, where violence is glorified as sport. The killings and physical violence were not to protect innocent life, but instead were repugnant and morally indefensible images designed to appeal to young consumers,” the lawsuit reads.
Had the terms of the licensing agreement been adhered to, the lawsuit contends, DiMucci could have used his right to refuse consent to persuade ZeniMax “to change the scripts so that, for instance, they instead told the story of a post-apocalyptic struggle for survival without craven violence.
“Alternately, he could have priced into his fee adequate compensation to safeguard himself against the potential loss of goodwill from being associated with the immoral images in Defendant’s scripts,” the suit adds.
The Wrap has reached out to ZeniMax for comment.
The suit seeks general damages “in excess of $1 million.”
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.