Rockers to candidates: Stop using our music
Bon Jovi wants John McCain's to stop using his songs at campaign stops. (Getty)
By Julie Gordon
jgordon@am-ny.com
John McCain has hit a sour note with a lot of rockers for using their songs on the campaign trail. But it turns out, there’s not much they can do to make him stop the music.
A growing number of musicians have demanded the senator to stop playing their songs at campaign events, but they probably won’t be taking their case to the courtroom.
It would be difficult for Van Halen, Bon Jovi, the Foo Fighters, Heart, Survivor, the Rolling Stones and other upset artists — most of whom are Democrats — to prove that McCain’s camp crossed legal lines by using their music without approval.
Van Halen, for example, wasn’t hot for McCain for using their hit “Right Now” at Ohio rally.
"Permission was not sought or granted nor would it have been given,” the band said..
Bon Jovi, meanwhile, which hosted a $30,000 a person fund-raiser for Democrat Barack Obama recently, objected to McCain using their song “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” at a campaign stop.Jon Bon Jovi recently hosted a $30,000 fund-raiser for Democrat Barack Obama.
While McCain seems to have little public support from rockers, Obama has many performers on his bandwagon. Just last week, Bruce Springsteen teamed up with Billy Joel at a concert for Obama in Manhattan.
All public places that broadcast music, such as a venue for a rally, need a license from a performing rights organization, like ASCAP. Venues buy a “license for the right to play all works by an organization’s artists, like the 330,000 ASCAP has. If the music the candidate is using falls under that license, there’s almost nothing an artist can do to stop it, said Stephen Masur, managing director of MasurLaw, and entertainment law firm in Manhattan.
”Then the artists are out of luck; they can’t prevent the use,” he said.
McCain’s campaign did not return requests for comment, but recently said all licenses were on the up-and-up. A few artists have also spoken out against Obama using their tunes, including Sam Moore, whose “Hold On I’m Comin’” was used by the senator’s camp. Moore said he was not publicly endorsing any candidate.
The only way for a musician to win such a suit would be to prove there was a false impression that they were backing the candidate, which experts say would be difficult.
“I’m not sure if someone hearing a Bon Jovi song would think Bon Jovi was sponsoring McCain,” said June Besek, executive director of Columbia Law School’s Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts.
Justin Hughes, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, said winning such a suit is a “real stretch.”
Most likely, the artists aren’t looking to sue, but just trying to distance themselves from the McCain camp. For example, the Foo Fighters said the saddest thing about the use of “My Hero” is that it was “written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song."
“These cases are not designed to go to trial,” Besek said. “They’re designed to make a statement.”
But, at a campaign rally last week in North Carolina, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said it’s tough to get famous musicians to perform on her team’s behalf.
"In fact, we … were making a list of who are some celebrity singers who could come out and help us and gosh, for the life of us, the pickings were slim there," Palin said. "Who's quasi-conservative out there in the celebrity land?"
