South Bronx Graffiti Crew Sues Over Jennifer Lopez Ad

Members of the graffiti art group, Tats Cru, attend the Art Auction to Benefit Downtown for Democracy at Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg in New York City

Teresa Lee/Getty Images

A television commercial for Fiat starring Jennifer Lopez has triggered a copyright dispute involving a Bronx-based graffiti crew whose work is featured prominently in the ad.

The commercial, titled "My World," features Lopez and a series of images intended to evoke the Bronx borough of New York, where she grew up, including a break dancer, a man drumming on an overturned pail and a colorful mural that reads "I Heart the Bronx." The muralists, TATS Cru, say the image is copyrighted and was used without permission. 

"That's enough," crew member Wilfredo Feliciano told the New York Times. "This has happened to us in the past, and it's not cool. We had to do something about it." Stacey Richman, the graffiti artists' lawyer, said that the advertising agency and Chrysler, a subsidiary of the Fiat group, have yet to respond. 

Related
• Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony Announce Divorce
• Jennifer Lopez 'On the Fence' About 'American Idol' Return

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter