Shawn Lee, who composed the soundtrack for Bully, filed a copyright infringement against Rockstar Games, for allegedly using a melody he composed without his permission, in Grand Theft Auto IV & Grand Theft Auto V.
Basically, we are talking about the "Soviet Connection" music melody, which is the main theme for GTA IV, and also about the GTA V Car Horn used in GTA Online by the players.
It seems that Rockstar asked Lee to submit music in 2008 to be used in Grand Theft Auto 4. Lee submitted that track but was told that the material was not going to be used “for reasons unknown” to him. Lee later used portions of the track on his album titled “Reel to Reel”.
Here you can listen to his original song that seems to feature the same (or part of it) GTA IV Main Music Theme, in a different version.
Lee stated that late last year, he discovered that “certain compositions and stems, containing a certain melody and riff” were used in Grand Theft Auto 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5. He also stated that portions of his song, “Biker Chick” are substantially similar to the “Soviet Connection” theme song used in the games, as well as another song called “Liberty City Loop” used in Grand Theft Auto 5 as a car horn, just like we're saying.
An update on the fact has come recently:
Just FYI — we looked into this yesterday and there’s a discrepancy in the filing. Lee said he submitted in Nov 2008, which would have been 7 months after GTA 4 came out. Reached out to see if that was correct/a typo. No response, but Lee’s lawyers filed to dismiss last night. https://t.co/su1lmEwOs7
— Nicole Carpenter (@sweetpotatoes) April 9, 2021
It seems that there was a discrepancy in the facts since Lee said he submitted that track in Nov 2008, which would have been 7 months after GTA 4 came out, which means that the song had already been composed.
