California Girls vs. California Gurls?

I just came across this gem on yahoo.ca:

http://new.ca.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepresses/244580/katy-perry-faces-demand-to-pay-beach-boys-for-california-gurls/

So, it appears that money hungry people that wrote songs for The Beach Boys are coming after Katy Perry for her single California Gurls. They claim that since Snoop Dogg, a guest on her song said, "I wish they could all be California gurls", that's one line too many and therefore, they deserve the right to her royalties.

Last time I checked, the definition of plagiarism is: The presentation of the work of another person as one’s own or without proper acknowledgement (Concordia University's definition of plagarism)

One sentence: "I wish they could all be California gurls" in my opinion hardly qualifies as work. It is a sentence, like any other. Just like "Good morning" or "Hello, how do you do?". Just because you happened to have used it in a song, doesn't mean that you can scream foul and throw the word plagiarism around.

If Katy Perry had used many parts of the song, I would be on the plagiarism side, or borrowing some melodies without saying you're sampling (like Girlfriend and Avril Lavigne)

Take for example the sentence: "Every morning, I brush my teeth."

The two words, "every morning" are found in Sugar Ray's song: Every Morning.

Now, let's say for some reason, I recorded a clip of me saying that. Or for some weird reason, singing it to a scale or triads. Then for some bizarre reason, this sold 11 million copies in three weeks of me saying it, Sugar Ray can come after me? Or the writers of the Sugar Ray song can come after me and demand royalties? This sounds ludicrous to me.

In my opinion, the writers of the Beach Boys song are just greedy and want more money. They've written many Beach Boys song and each time a Beach Boys song is played, they get money. Beach Boys songs are still played, last time I checked.

So, for me, this is a classic case of greed rearing its ugly head.

I'm all about integrity, but for something like this, I have to stand on Katy's side.