Newspaper clipping - Songwriter Catfight!

From today's Globe & Mail Review Section... the article speaks for itself:

• Chantal accuses Avril of crossing 'ethical line'
  GEOFF NIXON
  From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
  July 4, 2007 at 3:48 AM EDT
  Two of Canada's most well-known chanteuses, Chantal Kreviazuk and Avril Lavigne, share the same orbit in the Canadian music scene. Both are signed to Sony BMG Music, both have management through Vancouver's Nettwerk Music Group and the two have even collaborated from time to time. But now an apparent rift has emerged between the two, with Kreviazuk taking aim at Lavigne and her work in a recent interview in an American music magazine.
  In the June, 2007, issue of Performing Songwriter, Kreviazuk pokes fun at the notion that Lavigne is a songwriter and suggests that the pop singer from Napanee, Ont., may have lifted a song title from Kreviazuk's own work.
  "I mean, Avril, a songwriter?" Kreviazuk is quoted as saying. "Avril doesn't really sit and write songs by herself or anything."
  Kreviazuk goes on to say in the interview that she sent Lavigne a song called Contagious two years ago and that Lavigne then included a song by the same name on her most recent album, The Best Damn Thing.
  "Avril will also cross the ethical line, and no one says anything," Kreviazuk said in the interview.
  "That's why I'll never work with her again. I sent her a song two years ago called Contagious and I just saw the track listing to this album and there's a song called Contagious on it - and my name's not on it. What do you do with that?"
  In a response to a question from the interviewer, however, she said she would not seek legal action.
  Lavigne's Toronto-based entertainment lawyer, Chris Taylor, said yesterday that he had no comment on the remarks made by Kreviazuk. Both Sony BMG and Nettwerk were similarly mum about the tiff between the two stars.
  Evan Taubenfeld, who collaborated with Lavigne on four songs included on The Best Damn Thing and who is the singer for the L.A.-based band Black List Club, said the Contagious that made Lavigne's record was one that did not involve Kreviazuk.
  "I honestly can't speak as to the song that Chantal is claiming to have sent or not have sent," Taubenfeld said.
  "The only thing I can say is that Avril and I wrote a song called Contagious for my record. We started it from scratch. We wrote it at her house and we wrote a 100-per-cent original collaboration that only her and I were part of, and that we came up with the concept for it on the spot. I was going to use it for my record, and then at the last second she used it on her record."
  As for the relationship between Lavigne and Kreviazuk, Taubenfeld said he could offer no explanation as to what led to the dispute between the two musicians.
  "Av is probably my closest friend in the world and I think she's always treated Chantal fairly and with great amounts of respect and dignity," he said.
  "I'm not sure what happened. I know they had a great relationship for the last record and they wrote some really good songs together. But I'm not really sure, exactly, what happened on this record."
  He reiterated, "I can say that Contagious was 100 per cent between [Avril] and I. Chantal had nothing to do with it."
  Rick Taylor, managing editor of Performing Songwriter, said Kreviazuk's comments simply came out in a regular conversation between the singer and freelance writer Bob Cannon.
  Cannon said he felt the controversy between the two stemmed more from the fact that Kreviazuk was not mentioned as an influence on Lavigne's song.
  "I think Chantal, without saying so, ... was a little bit hurt by that," he said, adding that feuds over credit are common in the music industry.
  Neither Lavigne nor Kreviazuk could be reached by The Globe and Mail yesterday for comment.