Politicians can't always get what they want on their campaign soundtracks.
The Rolling Stones have threatened legal action against President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign for repeatedly using their songs at his rallies despite being told to “cease all use” of their singles. The Stones are working with music-rights organization Broadcast Music Inc., aka BMI, the band revealed on Sunday, warning that “the unauthorized use of their songs will constitute a breach of its licensing agreement.
In fact, there’s a long history of musicians fighting with politicians over their rights to use songs on the campaign trail. President Trump, though, has been deemed notably discordant with the images that many artists wish to portray. And Rolling Stones’ singer Mick Jagger has discussed learning this the hard way during the Rolling Stones’ ongoing efforts to keep their song catalog out of the Trump campaign’s hands. Jagger conceded that sometimes artists “can’t stop” people from playing their songs during a Twitter Q&A a month before the 2016 presidential election. “They can play what they want,” he said.
Other artists, such as Aerosmith, have cited the Lanham Act, which prohibits “any false designation or misleading description or representation of fact … likely to cause confusion … as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person.” In other words, by playing an artist’s song at a rally, a politician could make the audience think that the musician supports the campaign.
R&B tenor Sam Moore, of the duo Sam and Dave, asked Barack Obama to stop playing “Hold On, I’m Coming’” during his 2008 presidential campaign. Moore at the time wrote, “I have not agreed to endorse you for the highest office in our land. ... My vote is a very private matter between myself and the ballot box.”Cyndi Lauper chided the Democratic National Committee for using her 1986 hit “True Colors” in a 2012 attack ad against Mitt Romney.
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