ARIA-award winning, Australian music royalty Megan Washington is taking on Australian airline royalty Qantas, accusing them of misleading or deceptive conduct after learning the company had been palming off a performance from the singer as an official endorsement.
Washington will now be seeking damages over the company’s unauthorised use of a live recording of her performance of I Still Call Australia Home at the airline’s 90th anniversary celebrations. The one-off rendition of the company’s anthem was uploaded to Qantas’ official YouTube channel and in-flight programming where it stayed for up to a year after the performance.
As part of their case, Washington and her legal team have requested access to contracts the company has in place with other celebrity ambassadors including basketballer Andrew Bogut, Formula 1 drivers Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo, Olympian Cathy Freeman and Miranda Kerr, however they were only granted documents related to Silverchair’s Daniel Johns, who recently recorded the track Atlas for the company, as a means to calculate how much is to be recouped as per standard practice.
Qantas aren’t backing down and requested Washington hand over copies of contracts between herself and other sponsors, including that with rival Virgin, who used the songstress to champion a recent campaign.
The video has since been removed from social network, though a quick search shows Qantas openly flogged the performance following on from the ceremony.
Both parties will meet in Sydney on Monday, 19th September to hammer out an agreement so hopefully this doesn’t cause too much of a delay for Washington’s new album, which she’s been working on in the UK. The Holy Moses singer will be performing at this year’s Melbourne Festival and supporting new film The Boy Castaways in which she appears alongside Tim Rogers.
(Via Herald Sun)
