Politicians playing musician’s tunes?

General Chat In The News
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So, is it OK for politicians to use musicians and other creative’s work for self-promotion?

Or should they get permission?

Village People have sent a cease and desist letter to Trump to try to stop him using their tracks and groups impersonating them at his rallies

And the creators of Fireman Sam have objected to Carrie posting pictures of Johnson dressed as Fireman Sam at their son’s birthday party because ……

“For Johnson to benefit from these Twitter publicity photos, released by his wife, is a bitter pill for us. He is as far from the ethos of brave, selfless firemen serving the community as could be imagined.”

Me, I think politicians have a ruddy cheek to help themselves to peoples work to self-promote and should have some manners and ask permission

It must be infuriating to see something you’ve created used to promote something you don’t agree with

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That reminds me of D:ream’s Things can only get better, that New Labour adopted as their intro theme. The only snag with that was, it didn’t. They left the treasury empty, with Liam Byrne’s note on the desk “there’s no money left”
Ex-Treasury secretary Liam Byrne’s note to his successor: there’s no money left | David Laws | The Guardian

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I think Politicians and Political Parties should ask permission before using someone else’s work to be their “theme tune” - and pay any appropriate music licence / copyright fees.

Quite a few musicians have objected to politicians using their music - but I think Trump holds the record for having the most musicians publicly objecting about him using their songs at his rallies and disassociating themselves from him. I would too!

Although even politicians should be allowed to answer questions about their favourite songs - I had to laugh when I heard that David Cameron just answered a question about his favourite music and he said he liked The Smiths. He didn’t even use any of their music but Johnny Marr still took umbrage and responded with
“David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don’t. I forbid you to like it.”

:rofl:

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Yes, I’d forgotten that one, it’s different though, because the Labour Party asked permission, so Dreams were OK with it

But M People weren’t OK with Liz Truss using Moving on Up or Johnson quoting them in his Covid speech

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My favourite musician’s response I’ve found so far was when Johnson used Friendly Fires track Blue Cassette at the Tory Party Conference in 2021

“Our permission was not sought and we have asked our management to make sure it isn’t used again.”

“If we’d have intended them to use it, we’d have named the track ‘Blue Bunch of Corrupt Wankers’.”

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Wow :astonished:! Trump has had at least 19 or 20 cease and desist letters about songs. That was as of 2020. I don’t know what the law is on this (that’s what I was looking for when I stumbled on this), but Trump is going to run out of songs to campaign with.

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That’s an interesting one to look at.

Is the difference that he took the original and and altered it and then reproduced it to broadcast on his own commercial

By broadcasting it as his own, that makes it a copy write issue?

Whereas people like Trump are just playing the original at their rallies etc?

You don’t get done or have to ask permission to play an artists songs at a birthday party, for example?

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I am no expert on copyright issues but I think if you write anything whether it is a song or a book, you are entitled to a reward if that thing is used in anyway. Whether they would find out or chase you if you played it at birthday party is a moot point. Certainly if you own a shop and play the radio then you are liable for artist rights payments.

In Clive Parmer’s case there were two issues - he took the artist’s tune to play on his advertising and he changed the lyrics without their permission.

Artists can and do refuse permission for their work to be used in a certain way - think of Mary Poppins, - Walt Disney tried for years to get permission to make a film of the books.but was refused.

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Well, it seems only fair to me that people shouldn’t be allowed to use artists work to promote their causes without the artists permission

And especially annoying for the artist if they don’t agree with the cause

But there doesn’t seem to be any way of stopping it? Cease and desist letters aren’t legally binding and Trump just carries on

So I was wondering why this case E was different