Kimberly "Sweet Brown" Wilkins doesn't have time for bronchitis, but the viral video star who appeared on Tosh.0 made time to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against
Apple for selling a track on
iTunes featuring her voice. It's a musical mashup of her television interview following a fire that broke out at her apartment complex.
Sweet Brown was interviewed in April of last year by KFOR reporters who were on the scene. She said she woke up to get a drink and thought somebody was barbecuing before she realized it was a fire. "I ran for my life and then the smoke got me. I got bronchitis. Ain't nobody got time for that!," she told reporters.
The original interview, posted to
YouTube, has fetched over 23 million hits to date, but it's not the only one she gave. In the suit, Sweet Brown alleges that representatives from the Bob Rivers Show in Seattle called her a day after the KFOR interview aired and asked "general questions relating to the apartment fire." Later that day, the radio station produced a song called "I Got Bronchitis" using phrases from her TV interview, the suit claims.
Two days after her interview, the song was available on iTunes. The suit claims Sweet Brown did not "consent or agree to have her name, likeness, voice, statements, photograph used in connection with any products, songs, video productions, merchandise, goods, advertisements or solicitations for merchandise, goods or service."
Sweet Brown is seeking $15 million in damages.