There are laws that protect an artist from being wrongfully associated with reputation-damaging things, but its’ hard to argue that a mainstream political party is one of them. However, one aspect I didn’t think of is that Huck was using the music to basically celebrate a criminal act. Sullivan’s lawyers could argue that this is not a typical “Republican uses song, artist objects because he doesn’t support Republicans” situation.
No, it’s just that you can’t have your reputation damaged if no one knows you wrote the song.
In all the brouhaha about that rally, did anyone say, "Man, f*#&! Survivor!" Lots of f#&! Huckabee and Davis, of course, and although people do not know who Sullivan is, people know that Survivor did Eye of the Tiger. Yet I don’t think anyone associated Survivor with the event.
He did. The song was used just once. Sullivan is pursuing the case anyway. We should thank him for it and I hope it gets to a verdict. This really is an issue that needs to be settled. Given Sullivan’s history of dumb lawsuits though, I wouldn’t bet on him.
If it were up to me, I’d say go for it. Ted can object all he wants but my own opinion would be that if you bought the license you ought to be able to play the song wherever you darn well please. If you, as an artist, want to pick and choose who plays your song where, then you need to be the person negotiating the sale of the license. Again, just my own opinion and I’m not a lawyer nor am I all that familiar with what the actual law says.