In yet another case of a politician using an artist’s music without permission, Republican candidate for senator Rand Paul has been told to lay off the Rush.
Paul had been using the band’s “Spirit Of The Radio” in a fundraising video on his website and on YouTube. That is, until a representative of Rush’s record label asked Rand’s campaign to cease and desist, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
“This is not a political issue – this is a copyright issue,” Anthem Entertainment Group lawyer Robert Farmer said during an interview. “We would do this no matter who it is.”
Farmer also said the band’s next step depends on the Paul campaign’s formal response. So far, the only response Farmer received was from Paul’s campaign manager, who called the use of “background music” a “non-issue,” according to the Courier-Journal, which notes the video is still on YouTube, but without sound.
While Paul is the latest example of a politician using music without permission of the copyright owners, a more glaring issue might be his choice of bands. Paul is Kentucky’s Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and Rush is from Canada. After all, couldn’t Paul find an American artist to infringe upon?
Last week David Byrne sued Florida Governor Charlie Crist for using “The Road To Nowhere” by Byrne’s old band, The Talking Heads, in an online video campaign.
“Use of the song and my voice in a campaign ad implies that I, as writer and singer of the song, might have granted Crist permission to use it, and that I therefore endorse him and/or the Republican Party, of which he was a member until very, very recently,” Byrne wrote on his website.
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