An article that refers to Hunters and Collectors requesting that their music not be used by the Liberal Party of Australia.

Author:  Andrew Thorpe, ABC News.

Date: 31 August 2023.

Original URL: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-31/eminem-ramaswamy-donald-trump-campaign-music-cease-desist/102787618

Article Text

Ten times musicians told politicians to quit playing their music without permission

Rapper Eminem this week demanded Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stop using his song Lose Yourself on the campaign trail.

While Ramaswamy — who as a university student once said the track was his “life theme song” — agreed to stop playing it out of respect for the rapper, not everyone who runs for office is so easy to convince.

Here are 10 other instances of politicians being told to snap back to reality and quit using artists’ music without permission, and how those politicians responded.

Bruce Springsteen vs Ronald Reagan

Bruce Springsteen’s rebuke of US president Ronald Reagan remains one of the most cited examples of a musician calling out a politician for appropriating their music.

Reagan had intended to use Springsteen’s misunderstood hit Born in the U.S.A. on the campaign trail for his 1984 re-election run.

The song’s anthemic chorus is often mistaken for blind patriotism, but even a quick look at the rest of the lyrics reveals it to be a condemnation of how America treats its working-class war veterans.

Nevertheless, the Reagan campaign was keen to adopt the song as its own, and even approached Springsteen’s management to seek an endorsement. Both requests were denied.

Springsteen then began speaking out after the president praised him in his stump speech, saying: “There’s something really dangerous happening to us out there now. We’re slowly getting split up into two different Americas.

“Things are being taken away from the people that need them and given to the people that don’t.”

There’s been speculation the event was one of the defining moments in turning Springsteen into an outspoken liberal campaigner.

Jimmy Barnes vs Reclaim Australia

Cold Chisel’s 1978 debut single Khe Sanh was played during at least one rally held by anti-Islam group Reclaim Australia in 2015.

It prompted singer Jimmy Barnes to speak out against the group, saying “none of these people represent me and I do not support them”, and drawing attention to his own multicultural family before asking Reclaim Australia to no longer play his music.

Reclaim Australia, for its part, said it was “deeply saddened” by Barnes’ statement, but it would continue to “privately” support the singer.

Twisted Sister vs Clive Palmer

United Australia Party leader Clive Palmer used a rewritten version of Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It in campaign ads during the 2019 federal election, with the lyrics changed to “Australia ain’t gonna cop it”.

The problem was he didn’t have permission from the band, having initially made contact with them and then baulked at paying the requested $150,000 licence fee.

The case went to court, where Palmer’s lawyers argued that We’re Not Gonna Take It lacked originality due to its “substantial similarities” with Christmas carol O Come All Ye Faithful, that Palmer’s replacement lyrics had in fact been inspired by the 1976 movie Network, and that his use of the song may even have helped Twisted Sister sell concert tickets in Australia.

The band’s frontman, Dee Snider, told the court that wasn’t true because Palmer’s rendition of the song was “awful”.

“Mr Palmer’s image is not good for my heavy metal image either,” he said.

Palmer ended up being ordered to pay the band $1.5 million in damages for copyright infringement.

Heart vs Sarah Palin

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was known as “Sarah Barracuda” when she played on her high school basketball team, a fact she leaned on when choosing her intro music at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Heart singer Nancy Wilson was furious at the Alaska governor’s use of the song.

“I think it’s completely unfair to be so misrepresented,” Wilson told Entertainment Weekly.

“I feel completely f***ed over.”

Despite the pushback, the Republican kept using the song — in keeping with the McCain-Palin campaign’s policy of purchasing blanket licences rather than seeking artists’ permission (which also saw them earn rebukes from the Foo Fighters, Van Halen, Bon Jovi and John Mellencamp).

McCain made an exception when it came to playing ABBA, who were reportedly one of his favourite bands, telling reporters he wanted to avoid a “worsening in US-Swedish relations”.

Eminem vs The New Zealand National Party

Vivek Ramaswamy isn’t the first politician to be told off for using Eminem’s Lose Yourself in a political campaign.

The New Zealand National Party once found itself battling the rapper in court after using a song in a 2014 campaign ad that was “strikingly similar” to the 2002 hit.

Craftily titled “Eminem Esque”, the National Party’s song was accompanied by footage of a rowing team while a deep-voiced announcer spat fire lyrics like “Right now, our economy is growing faster than Australia and 28 other OECD countries”.

Justice Helen Cull ordered the party to pay Eminem $NZ600,000 ($535,000 at the time) in damages, with interest.

MGMT vs Nicolas Sarkozy

Already controversial for its music video, MGMT’s song Kids made headlines in 2009 when the Brooklyn-based duo threatened to sue French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party after it used the track without their permission.

The UMP eventually settled the dispute by paying the band 30,000 euros, saying the use of the song during the party’s national congress and in campaign ads was unintentional.

The amount was slightly more than the party had intended to pay, having initially offered a compensation payment of 1 euro when the song’s use was first brought to light.

MGMT rejected that offer as “insulting”.

Hunters and Collectors vs the Tasmanian Liberal Party

Hunters and Collectors frontman Mark Seymour didn’t mince words when he found out the Tasmanian Liberal Party had used the band’s 1992 song Holy Grail at a campaign launch in 2002.

“We are disgusted by the appropriation of our much-loved anthem by a political party that we utterly despise,” he told News Corp’s Hobart masthead The Mercury.

“To redress any damage that this may have caused to the memory of our band and its music, we would like to make it known to the people of Tasmania that we are opposed to everything that the Liberal Party stands for.”

Liberal leader Bob Cheek later pointed out the launch venue had a licence to play copyrighted music, making the use of the song perfectly legal at the time.

Australia’s standard public performance music licences now no longer apply to political events, meaning campaigns need the permission of both songwriters and performers before playing their music.

Cyndi Lauper vs the Democratic National Committee

In a rare case of the political left being rebuked by a musician, Cyndi Lauper objected to her 1986 song True Colors being used in a Democratic attack ad against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012.

Lauper’s objection was hardly a PR coup for the Romney campaign, however.

“I wouldn’t have wanted that song to be used in that way,” she tweeted.

“Whoever used my song should have asked, and … realised Mr Romney can discredit himself without the use of my work.”

Rage Against the Machine vs Paul Ryan

While 2012 Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan didn’t go so far as to attempt to pump up his crowds with Rage Against the Machine, he did tell The New York Times he counted the revolution-espousing rap-rock outfit among his favourite bands.

This raised the ire of Rage guitarist Tom Morello, who wrote an opinion piece for Rolling Stone calling Ryan “the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades”.

“Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them,” Morello wrote.

Everyone vs Donald Trump

Former US president Donald Trump is a serial offender when it comes to using artists’ music without their permission.

In fact, the list of musicians who’ve condemned him for doing so is now so long it has its own Wikipedia page.

Trump’s refusal to even attempt to find artists whose opinions align with his own means his rally attendees have so far rocked out to a long list of liberal icons, including Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, the White Stripes and — inexplicably — the Village People.

R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe perhaps put it most succinctly in 2015, when he criticised the Trump campaign for playing the band’s music.

“Go f*** yourselves, the lot of you — you sad, attention-grabbing, power-hungry little men. Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign,” Stipe said.

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