Another GOP Candidate Indirectly Promotes Bernie Sanders By Not Getting Music Cleared With Artist
from the free-advertising dept
This is apparently going to keep happening. A while back, we discussed the situation in which Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President (while making comments that torpedoed a bunch of his vaunted business interests) and used the music of Neil Young without the artist's permission. As I noted at the time, Trump was legally allowed to use the music, since the venue had paid the required ASCAP license, but failing to go the extra step and clearing it with Young allowed the musician to generate headlines all to do with his support of Democrat Bernie Sanders. Since candidacy announcements are generally not done to generate name recognition for one's opponents, I suggested that, hey, just go get the whiny artist's permission first, mmkay?
Bobby Jindal didn't take my advice. Jindal used the music of Buckwheat Zydeco during his presidential announcement and, well, ol' Buckwheat was not pleased.
Buckwheat's music was among several songs that played at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner before Jindal and his supporters took the stage, Gambit Weekly reported while live tweeting the event. The zydeco musician replied to Gambit on his own Twitter page and said that Bobby Jindal using the music of Buckwheat and his band is "not cool at all."Again, we'll go ahead and assume that the music was properly licensed because that always ends up being the case, but what's the point of letting the discussion of your presidential bid get side-railed because you chose to use the music of some guy who doesn't support you? All the campaign would have to do would be to clear the use with the artist and then all this doesn't happen. Is that really so hard? I mean, sure the musicians are being childish and petty (and have no legal claim), but that's the reality. If you don't want to give extra promotion to opponents, maybe find musicians who actually supports you.
And it's also the reality that all angry-musician-roads lead to Bernie Sanders, apparently.
He had much kinder words for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who strutted on stage to launch his presidential bid with Buckwheat's "Make A Change" playing in the background.And so we now have two separate GOP candidate announcements generating publicity for Bernie Sanders. To avoid a third, candidates need only take my advice on clearing the music they use with the artists.
He said Sanders' use of the song was "tres bien."
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Filed Under: bernie sanders, bobby jindal, buckwheat zydeco, donald trump, license, music, support
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But did Bernie?
It seems like it is an important piece of information that is missing.
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Re: But did Bernie?
sounds like permission to me.
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Re: Re: But did Bernie?
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The point is not that these candidates have to get permission to use the song.
So Bernie Sanders, if he didn't get permission, got lucky. If he used a song by someone who didn't like him (there are plenty such musicians to be sure) then a flap could have gone in the other direction.
Apparently, the moral of the story is recording artists are opinionated about their politics and willing to express it publicly. So make sure your campaign music comes from someone who agrees with you, or is inclined to stay silent about it.
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Re: The point is not that these candidates have to get permission to use the song.
I guess these artists don't care that people on BOTH sides of politics buy music. For me, anytime an artist decides to express their political opinion, I use that as a gauge as to whether I wish to continue supporting their lifestyle or not.
Now my measly few purchases may not mean much, but how many more people do they alienate when they express their views? Maybe a better approach would be to thank whomever used their music, then ask that they address their concerns on views x,y, and z.
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Re: Re: The point is not that these candidates have to get permission to use the song.
Yea, it may not be a good marketing campaign to speak up about your politics (Ted Nugent) as it could effect your bottom line, but that's up to them.
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Next up?
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But Bernie is no direct competitor...
He is running for support by the democrats. He is the underdog there, so extra support for him causes a harder struggle for the opponent in the final election.
I think the GOP likes that.
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Re: But Bernie is no direct competitor...
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Re: Re: But Bernie is no direct competitor...
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Re: Re: But Bernie is no direct competitor...
Remember Bush Sr? Remember "read my lips, no new taxes" and then new taxes, and the first Iraq war sending gas prices sky high? Well, the American people got sick of his bad leadership and so they threw him out and chose a new president from the other party who was the anti-Bush: a (relatively) young, hip saxaphone player who oh-by-the-way also happened to be a thoroughly corrupt sexual predator whose entire presidency was plagued by a never-ending stream of scandals. The Clinton administration was worse (and worse for America) than the Bush administration.
So we did the same thing again: elected a new guy from the other party who portrayed himself as the anti-Clinton. W got in on a promise to "restore dignity to the White House." Well, we all know how that went! And the W administration was worse (and worse for America) than the Clinton administration.
So what did we do? The same thing again, electing the anti-Bush, a man who campaigned on "hope and change," and then proceeded to spend the next 8 years (yeah, it's only been 6 and a half, but is there any reason to think the rest will be any different?) proving that the only "changes" he's bringing about are in the same direction as the changes we've been experiencing since the 70s: downward, ever downward. So far, the Obama administration has been worse (and worse for America) than the W administration.
It doesn't take a genius to call 2016 already: we're going to end up electing whichever Republican candidate most successfully portrays himself as the anti-Obama. And things will get worse.
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Re: Re: But Bernie is no direct competitor...
Socialism, ideas so good they have to be mandatory.
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Socialism
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Re: Socialism
Er, one (or even a hundred thousand) corporate, money grabbing, freedom ruining rapacious monsters, vs. 4.N million rapacious monsters (via IRS, et al) ...
Methinks you misunderstand the magnitude of gov't power's potentials. Knowing you, that's not true.
I'd much rather find myself defending myself in court vs. a corporation, than having to prove to a bad gov't that I'm no threat to it.
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Re: Re: Socialism
Imagine, if you would, the entire US military being run by Xe International (aka Blackwater) and then imagine a corporate entity of that size and power capturing all the regulatory agencies (or since we're really against socialism, buying out all of the companies that are hired to oversee them), and you have the makings of a very dark dystopian war machine indeed.
To be fair this isn't a fair assessment of a purely privatized economy. Any system, capitalist or otherwise will need to be regulated and tweaked in order to make them work.
But we can't simply say that socialism always leads to a fascist state because we haven't really tested that. We can't say that capitalism always leads to a corporate oligarchy either. It just did in our instance. One that has the worst of both worlds, where we have to defend ourselves both against corporate bourgeoisie that doesn't care for client / consumer rights and a state that presumes we proletariat are a clear and present threat (hence the surveillance and extrajudicial detention and the brutal law enforcement).
Sometimes a given commodity or service needs to be socialized because the market cannot be trusted. Sometimes it can't because the government can't prioritize keeping it working.
But being against communism or socialism or whatever because that's the rival team is, though typical of human bias, sheer folly. And it allows all that is wrong to continue to fester.
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Stupid messed up markups.
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Re: But Bernie is no direct competitor...
Can you imagine if it were to end up Trump vs. Saunders? Populist right vs. populist left? That would be amazing to watch. Of course no matter who won, America would lose.
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Re: Re: But Bernie is no direct competitor...
Perhaps you underestimate the voting public.
"Of course no matter who won, America would lose."
This is a given, considering that the country is run by corporations.
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Re: Re: But Bernie is no direct competitor...
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In cases such as this one it clearly doesn't. No approval or endorsement was given by the band to the presidential bid, effectively slandering them. Yet a licence was given de jure. If anything, under the probable terms that were signed up with that copyright, the band most likely couldn't stop such a licence from being granted.
Copyright gets in the way of moral rights. On what other planet would it be seen as appropriate to sign away your right not to be defamed?
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Re: Moral Rights
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Re: Re: Moral Rights
It would mean presidential candidates would have to put up a disclaimer saying the band doesn't support the campaign and the music is being used "unofficially". That seems to make perfect sense, regardless if copyright was involved. If this were an issue of, say, using Jeremy Clarkson's persona on Fiat cars without his permission it would be far clearer without the mess of including property considerations.
But again, because of the hijacking of these issues by copyright, this is not easy. It would be ridiculous if I "signed away" my right to sue a company I work for because of a dangerous slippery floor for example. Either civil rights are inalienable or they are not. Pre-emptive waivers are nonsensical and nobody would sign them in any other context.
This is exactly why I support abolishing copyright but keeping (most of) the moral rights stuff in a separate legal sphere. The property question can be solved through assurance contracts. The moral issues just need to stop being seen through the lens of copyright.
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Re: Re: Moral Rights
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For example, the GOP loves Bruce Springsteen's Born In The USA but they obviously do not understand what the song is about. It's rather humorous.
Here is a link to some of the more hilarious (mis?)uses of music for political purpose.
http://www.laweekly.com/music/the-5-most-hilarious-republican-attempts-to-co-opt-rock-songs- 2412717
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Moral rights
But if someone is using it to support an issue or candidate you don't like, it's part of maintaining your reputation to speak out and let people know. It's certainly not childish and petty.
Remember when "My City Was Gone" was being used as the Rush Limbaugh theme? People were shouting "Rush Limbaugh!" at her shows. She told people she had no control over it, but still had to deal with consequences.
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Yawn, in other news the sun will rise in the east
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the musicians are being childish and petty ...
What? No they're not. Would you like people to be thinking about your associating with Donald Trump or Bobby Jindal when they're considering buying your music? I sure wouldn't. They're distancing themselves from bad juju, not wanting to be tarred with brushes richly deserved by others.
Neil Young may be a crackpot[*], but he's not stupid.
* I don't expect artists to be philosophers, and I love his stuff even if he is a crackpot; always have.
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You know, when this site posts things like this, and then takes offense at being accused of hating artists, it really reflects badly. In this instance, no one even put forth a legal claim. It's literally a five paragraph blog post about a single tweet by an artist distancing himself from a political position. Just so we're all on the same page, this is the entirety of what's being discussed, because apparently the context was "mistakenly" dropped by our esteemed "author":
But hey, the lesser Techdirt writers can never miss a chance for wannabe sub-Gawker snark, even if they have to manufacture their own controversy and obfuscate details. It's true that someone is being "whiny" "childish" and "petty" here, but it certainly isn't Buckwheat Zydeco.
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Re:
If that's what you think of TD, imagine how it reflects on you that you bother to remain here. Are you stupid, or what?
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