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Singer sues Carrie Underwood, NFL and NBC for 'stealing' her song, gives YouTube video as proof

Singer Heidi Merrill had pitched the song to the 'Cry Pretty' singer's producer in August 2017 during a conference in Nashville and was told they are going to pass on the song.

A lawsuit has been filed against Country singer Carrie Underwood, the National Football and the NBC network Wednesday by singer Heidi Merill's songwriting team, who claims that their song was stolen and "slightly modified" to introduce "Sunday Night Football" to viewers last season. Underwood's song 'Game On' even carried the same title as the song Californian singer Merrill posted on YouTube two year ago, the lawsuit in Manhattan federal court pointed out. 

The lawsuit claims that Merrill had pitched the song to the 'Cry Pretty' singer's producer in August 2017 during a conference in Nashville, Tennessee, which is where Underwood lives. The producer referred to his assistant, who told her in an email in October 2017, "I'm sorry, we're going to have to pass." The lawsuit sought unspecified damages, reports CBS News, adding that the copyright was violated. 

Merrill's 'Game On' video, which is posted to her YouTube channel titled Heidi Merrill Music on March 11, 2017, has close to 500,000 views and it is impossible to not note the similarities in at least the tempo and structure. While it is unclear at this point if Merrill has the legal grounds to actually win a case against three mammoth brands, people of the internet have been pointing out how NBC Sunday Night Football theme could have easily been inspired by Merrill's original song, especially since she submitted the song to Underwood and even got a response from her team. 

Kristopher Buen writes, "Oh chit! I was totally coming here to defend Carrie Underwood and now I can't 😲," while Gubby Gubbington opined, "Pretty obvious they ripped this lady off. They'll end up paying her off. Sorry Underwood fans, I know you don't want it to be true." The RebelFlame Kid went as far as to say, "Totally doesn’t sound like another song wink wink* Heidi Merril “game on”. Couldn’t change the name to make it a little different."

Underwood's representatives, NFL and NBC are all yet to make any comments on this.