I think it would be a tough sell as there is no exchange of money for a good or service, or anything commonly thought of as commerce.
Let’s take 2008 when for a brief time the media was calling Sarah Palin " Sarah Barracuda." The campaign began playing Heart’s song Barracuda at campaign events. Heart raised hell and they stopped.
How could anyone believe that Heart (whoever they are individually, if they are even still alive) wrote this song nearly 20 years earlier in the hopes that Palin would come along so as to endorse her? It would seem to be a particularly dense person who believed that the playing of that song meant that the band Heart officially endorsed McCain/Palin 2008.
It seems as if these artists/songwriters are asking for more control than the law allows or it should allow. They absolutely have the right to make money off of their creative work and control public performance of it for commercial gain related to the song. What they do not (should not) get to do is control how a song influences or is perceived in popular culture.
What if I am creating a reality show “How Rednecks Blow Shit Up” and come on the scene of a burning house with drunken rednecks in the yard playing Skynard and blaming each other for the fire.
In my mind, I do not owe Lynard Skynard any money for that. The song is background to the real story. Only if I am attempt to make money off of the song itself should I have to pay. I think that is the spirit and intent of the law.
Sure, the proceeds from those products go to a campaign rather into someone’s pocket, but pretty much every current campaign offers goods in exchange for money.
This was an especially interesting case, as four members of Heart are credited co-writers: the Wilson sisters Ann and Nancy, guitarist Roger Fisher, and drummer Mike DeRosier.
Fisher (despite supporting Obama) and DeRosier, for their own reasons, were fine with McCain’s campaign using “Barracuda”. However, Ann and Nancy Wilson disagreed, and fired off a cease-&-desist letter on their own.
Nothing went to court, and I don’t guess Fisher and DeRosier were all that fired up about it … but I wonder what would happen in court if co-songwriters truly disagreed and wanted their interests represented separately in court.
You’re making money off the reality show, right? Then pay the people who contribute to the show - including Lynyrd Skynyrd. Or if you don’t want to pay the band to use their music, right your own southern anthems that inspire the same good-time redneck atmosphere that they do.
If that seems difficult, that’s a pretty good argument for paying the band.
Whatever the legal position, it’s not exactly good PR to be caught out employing people who are so careless and disorganised as not to have checked whether they were going to risk such a fuss in the first place, is it?
As I said before, there are two sets of copyright interests in a sound recording, one for composers/songwriters and one for musicians/recording artists. The same person might hold both interests for a particular recording, but they are separate rights. The composition interest actually has more rights.
Each owner of a copyright interest has the right to license a work without the permission of other owners. So If Huckabee had needed a license, he could have gotten one from just one of the four.
Of course, even if the legal theories the artists are citing don’t pan out, they can still appeal to a higher court, the court of public opinion. That’s a court which is both much more favorable to the artists, and which can impose greater consequences on the politicians. That’s the real reason why politicians usually settle these cases quickly out of court.
That is of course assuming that the politician isn’t running a badboy/badgirl campaign where he or she wants to show the country that he/she won’t back down under pressure.
They don’t. The argument is that the public tends to assume that the artist must’ve given permission for the song to be used. This perception increases the more the message matches the campaign. It’s not about what the song meant when it was written.
One other thing to remember is that is the blanket license for a venue or promoter does not include synchronization (sync) rights - the right to perform the work in conjunction with video. So that right is another area of possible standing for artists or rights holders to argue from. Note that in this case, it is the producer of the motion picture or video program that bears the onus of rights clearance, so perhaps this is a different angle of attack to protect artist/songwriter IP.
I imagine now a Trump commercial with him wearing a red windbreaker (to show he’s just a normal guy) walking down the center of a city street with his wife hugging on his arm and Bob Dylan singing “The Times They Are A’Changing” isn’t going to be happening. Or at least isn’t going to be aired for long.
“Get Together” probably won’t fly either. Or “For What It’s Worth.”
I don’t know the answer to the OP, but I will note that Rush Limbaugh has been using The Pretender’s My City Was Gone as his bumper music for decades. I doubt that they are happy about it, which makes me think that an artist has little control over how their music is used once it is published.
Broadcast radio is different. One of the tricky aspects of broadcast IP rights is that there are different rules and considerations depending on the type of broadcast media and programming. Terrestrial broadcast radio mandates statutory rates of compensation to the songwriters for the pub rights, but once a specific work has been released to radio any broadcaster can use it in the course of normal programming provided all usage is reported to the relevant PRO and other tracking companies. Note this does not apply to streaming, digital or satellite, only terrestrial OTA (over the air) . It also does not affect the master use (sound recording) rights nor permit theatrical or sync usages without additional grant of license. Mechanical licenses are also not included in this, of course, as they cover mechanical reproduction of a composition for sale, not broadcast.
Question re: fair use. Let’s say a stripper is doing an audition and plays “Eye of the Tiger”. She is not getting remuneration, she’s auditioning for a potential future job. Is this fair use or should she have to pay for the rights to use the song? If fair use, why is it not the same for political candidates? If not, should copyright attorneys hang out at music schools in the hopes of suing potential scholarship winners who audition using songs in their stable?
Music licensing rights derive from copyright. If it weren’t for the copyright law, there would be nothing to license.
The copyright law gives the owners of music the exclusive right to use the music in certain ways. The copyright owner (or its successor or assignee) then grants a license that gives the licensee permission to use the music in a way that the law allows the owner to control.
“Fair use” is an exception written into the copyright law that takes away the right of the owner of the work to control its use in certain circumstances. If the owner does not have the right to control the contemplated use of the music, there is no need to obtain a license.
The way most normal strip clubs operate, they would probably already have blanket licenses from the Peformance Rights Organizations (PROs) to perform music at their venues. Any stripper who wanted to perform an audition to a licensed song at the venue would be covered by that license.
The political parties rent convention halls for their conventions. In order to be allowed to perform copyrighted musical works at their hall, the owners/operators of the hall must make sure it is licensed.
Most music schools have some sort of public performances or recitals. It is likely that they already have blanket licenses. But if they don’t, there is the question of whether an audition is a public performance. If it is, there is always 17 USC 110(4) that might apply:
