Trump Accuses China Of Intellectual Property Theft... While He Applauds His Own Campaign's Intellectual Property Theft

Politicians on both sides of the aisle beat up China for stealing American intellectual property-- in other words, using it without paying for it. Trump has been particularly vocal about it. Trump, however, has consistently been stealing intellectual property, getting caught and reprimanded and then doing it again, and again, and again. The ominous-sounding Trump campaign video is anything but uplifting. There's an underlying ugliness to it-- primarily an invocation of danger and fear through the prominent music track in the background. It's very a very effective use of the music from a Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. Trump loved it. He tweeted it out to his followers. Unfortunately, his campaign didn't bother asking permission to use it, let alone pay to use it.

Warner Brothers issued a cease and desist order and the Trump campaign had to withdraw the ad.

I spoke to one of my old colleagues from Warners who told me that politicians generally have no respect for copyrights and no respect for musicians' rights. "They think they can use our music for free and that no one will care or notice. Both sides do it," she told me. "The complaints that come in are about 99% about Republican theft though... maybe a little more than 99%... Zimmer's 'Why Do We Fail' composition was a smart choice by Trump's campaign folks. They should have paid just like everyone else does."

This one, using music and footage from Bollywood smash Bajirao Mastani, is still up on YouTube but is no longer embeddable. This is what you get when you try to watch it on a non-YouTube site, as we found when we went to watch it again on a Sunday night DWT post. Watch it full screen.

TPP Is a Monopoly Protection Scheme, the Exact Opposite of a "Free Trade" Deal

A little confusing, but follow the gray lines. The above figure illustrates how the duration of the copyright that the Walt Disney company claims in Steamboat Willie — marked by the solid gray line — has twice approached expiration — by the dashed gray line. In both instances, federal lawmakers amended the Copyright Act to extend the duration, both of copyrighted works generally and works, such as Steamboat Willie, that predated the amendments (source; click to enlarge). In 2023, expect copyright protection in general to be extended again. This law is colloquially called "The Mouse Protection Act."

by Gaius Publius

Normally when we think of "free trade," us lay people, we think of removing barriers to the exchange of goods and services. Removing barriers is the "free" part of "free trade." Of course, there really is no such thing as a "no barriers" market, since even the simplest of markets always has rules, and those who write the rules are "picking winners and losers" by definition.

Consider, for example, a flea market held in the parking lot of a local fairground on a Saturday. To participate, you have to register for a space with the organizers (the parking lot isn't infinitely long or wide), set up an approved tent or table, and usually, if your goods are sold by weight or volume, have your weights and measuring devices certified by the organizers as honest.

All of the restrictions above place limits on the "market" — put it under control of the organizers — but consider for a minute just the last one, certified weights and measures. How is that not "picking winners and losers"? Winners — Vendors with honest scales. Losers — Vendors who cheat their customers.

Or consider a flea market without that requirement. Winners — Vendors who cheat their customers. Losers — Vendors with honest scales.

A lot has been written, in fact, about the non-existence, by definition, of anything resembling a "free market," including much by the writer Masaccio (main site here).

Monopolies and "Free Trade"

But that point aside, let's consider TPP from another standpoint. Monopolies are the enemies of so-called "free trade" since, by definition, they destroy competition and invert the usual assumptions about pricing power. In a well-supplied market, a market with much available product, pricing power is with the buyers, the customers, since it is they who, in the aggregate, set the limits of "what the market will bear."

But in a market in which the supply of something essential for life — water, food, life-saving medical supplies and care, even apartment housing in an old-style "company town" — is not "well-supplied," but is instead controlled and constrained by a single supplier or a small cartel of non-competing suppliers, that's just the opposite of a "free market." It's in fact the least free a market can get.

Thus it is with TPP. Very little actual trade will be freed up if TPP is passed, since barriers to "trade" among the many of the potential signing nations are nearly non-existent.

On the other hand, one of the most important outcomes of  theTPP will be the destruction of a competitive market, the one for life-saving drugs and other "intellecual property." For these products, the TPP raises barriers as surely as tariffs would do.

Economist Dean Baker calls the TPP a "protectionist" agreement. Baker (my emphasis):

The TPP And Free Trade: Time To Retake The English Language

The proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are planning to do a full court press in the lame duck session of Congress following the election. We will be bombarded with speeches and columns from President Obama and other illustrious figures telling us how it is important to approve the TPP for a variety of reasons.

We can be certain that one of the reasons will be the inherent virtues of free trade. They will not be telling the truth.

The TPP is not about free trade. It does little to reduce tariffs and quotas for the simple reason that these barriers are already very low. In fact, the United States already has trade deals with six of the other eleven countries in the TPP. This is why the non-partisan United States International Trade Commission (ITC) estimated that when the full gains from the TPP are realized in 2032, they will come to just 0.23 percent of GDP. This is a bit more than a normal month’s growth.

Again, the full gains from the TPP will come to just 0.23% of GDP — one month's growth. So what is going on with the TPP? Why do people like Barack Obama (and Pfizer, etc.) want it to pass so badly? Among the reasons is this one:

[T]he TPP goes far in the opposite direction, increasing protectionism in the form of stronger and longer patent and copyright protection. These forms of protection for prescription drugs, software, and other products, often raise the price by a factor of a hundred or more above the free market price. This makes them equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent.

These forms of protection do serve a purpose in promoting innovation and creative work, but we have other more efficient mechanisms to accomplish this goal. Furthermore, the fact that they serve a purpose doesn’t mean they are not protectionist. 

Tilting the playing field toward Money, a scheme that protects the holders of intellectual property ... forever, if they can get away with it. For example, consider this:

Copyright Length And The Life Of Mickey Mouse

Last week, we reported on Rep. Zoe Lofgren's statement that copyright law has become equal to the life of Mickey Mouse. Tom Bell has a couple of recent posts exploring issues related to Mickey Mouse and copyright, that seem worth exploring, given Rep. Lofgren's recognition of this fact. While he notes (as we have) that there's ample evidence to suggest that the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons really are in the public domain, he first explores how the length of copyright has followed the age of Mickey Mouse:

Bottom line: Until the current, neo-liberal capital-protecting political regime falls or is taken over, Mickey Mouse will never be in the public domain.

What About a "Free Market" for Doctors Too?

Baker finds something else significant about our so-called "free trade" agreements — they're very selective about which markets are "freed." Consider, for example, the market for relatively powerless manufacturing labor and the market for much more powerful (and wealthy) doctors.

Baker:

The other point to be made about free trade and protectionism is that our push for free trade has always been very selective. NAFTA and other trade deals were explicitly designed to make it as easy as possible for U.S. corporations to manufacture goods in the developing world and ship them back to the United States. ...

But [while] manufacturing workers in the developing world are willing to work for much lower pay than manufacturing workers in the United States, so are doctors in the developing world.

Unlike manufacturing workers, doctors are powerful enough to get protection. It is not generally possible for a doctor trained in another country to practice medicine in the United States unless they pass a U.S. residency program — for which there is a strict quota on foreign trained students. As a result of this restriction, doctors in the United States earn on average twice as much as doctors in Canada, Germany, and other wealthy countries. This protectionism costs the United States roughly $100 billion a year (around $700 per family) in higher health care costs.

If our trade negotiators actually were interested in “free trade,” they would have constructed a system whereby foreign trained doctors could be certified as meeting U.S. standards. They would then have the same freedom to practice as any doctor born and trained in the United States.

Again, a straight-up wealth protection scheme. Baker goes on to note that the "market for doctors" really is a trade issue, not an immigration one, since many German, Canadian, French and Indian doctors could most like get into the U.S. and get jobs — as waiters, for example — they just couldn't work as doctors.

Baker's conclusion is exactly right, that calling a deal like the TPP a "free trade agreement" is just propaganda: "When reporters call the TPP a 'free trade' deal, they are acting as advocates, not reporters. The TPP is a protectionist pact for those at the top who are worried that free trade will undermine their income — like it did for those at the middle and bottom."

There's No "Free Market" for Political Parties Either

I think if Democrats think that the Trumpist revolt against "free trade" deals is just an expression of anti-immigrant racism — and that they can pass TPP in the lame duck session without consequences — there may be a surprise in store for them. After all, there's no "free market" for U.S. political parties either — we have a carefully protected two-party monopoly — and there are only two ways to disrupt and revolt against it that I can think of. Neither is pretty, neither is orderly, and neither will be good for Democrats.

Forewarned? Let's hope so. The lame duck session is just weeks away.

GP
 

Does FitBit Owe a Royalty to the Writers of This Song?

by Gaius Publius

Something fun. Lately I've been inundated with ads for something called "FitBit" — a health toy that sits on your wrist and, apparently, talks to the Health app on your iPhone. Or something. The problem is the song. It's catchy, yes, very earwormy. But if you know your punk (or "parody punk") French popular music, it's also way too familiar.

Bear with me; this will be worth it. In 1977 Yvan Lacomblez composed the song "Ça plane pour moi" — slang that means "Everything's going great" or "It works for me." (It could be either, depending on whether Ça is used for things in general, as in Ça va, or something specific, as in Ça marche.) The song is a loose, feel-good, verbally kinetic piece of French fun that, in the hands of a classical music student and percussionist who called himself "Plastic Bertrand," became a big hit in Britain and elsewhere.

"Plastic Bertrand" went to lunch on that song the rest of his career, and he's still at it. If you say "ça plane ..." to a French adult of a certain age, they'll get the reference immediately.

"Ça plane pour moi"

Musically "Ça plane" is simple but deceptive. It has a straight 12-bar blues structure — I-I, IV-I, V-I — which you can hear immediately in the chorus. But in the verse there's a lot of "phrase syncopation." If you count the beats ("one, two, three, four") starting from the instrumental intro, and try to keep track of where the verbal phrases start and end, you'll see what I mean. The lyric of the first verse starts after the first downbeat, not on it or before it, so they're already not synced. Unlike the chorus ("Ça plane pour moi, ça plane pour moi..."), the verse is never in sync with the music, and its phrases aren't the same length. Simple but deceptive.

It's that phrase syncopation, by the way, that made the singer's percussion background valuable. He never loses the rhythm in live performances, like that at the end of this piece. (French, by the way, is a natural language for rap. Equal syllable length is built into it.)

The center of the song is a short, flying, non-verbal four-note phrase — you'll spot it as soon as you hear it. Overall the lyrics are a kind of French nonsense (click to see a version with translation). A great fun song and again, a major earworm.

Here's a live but lip-synced 1978 performance from Italian television that offers a good sense of the performer, the song, and why it was so successful. Click and listen — and if you feel like counting the beats, start from the instrumental intro:

There's a more relaxed physical performance in this 1978 lip-synced recording from British TV. The official released version, is here. But the best YouTube'd version is below — my favorite in fact. Scroll down to listen.

Me, I'm stuck; the song's been burned into my brain for the last few years.

Did FitBit Kinda-Sorta Steal this Song?

Now the FitBit jingle, the one that's everywhere this gifting season. Is this a version of "Ça plane pour moi" with subtle changes? Listen — it's not just the rhythm. The first four musical notes after the drumbeat intro are a huge tell:

The opening notes are damning, in my hearing, or at least reimbursement-inducing. Property rights freaks, does someone owe someone a payment? Seem so to me, unless FitBit has already paid up.

Once More With Dancers

Either way, both of these piece make great earworms, and you've now been infected. So, since I can't do any more damage than I've already done (you're welcome), here's a more modern version. "Bertrand" is obviously older, but he's fit, in full control of his chops, and still having fun. This is my favorite version.

From French TV:

Care to Help a Non-Corporate Bro?

FitBit corporate HQ is here:

FITBIT, INC. 

405 HOWARD STREET 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105

The composer of "Ça plane pour moi" is Yvan Lacomblez, and I think he's still alive.

Anyone want to give him an early Season's gift? You can write to FitBit and suggest you're onto them (maybe they'll tell you they've already ponied up). Or write to the composer — if you get contact info, let me know  — wish him a merry, then send him a link to the FitBit jingle. Or both. The Plastic Bertrand official website is here (professional contact page here).

The composer may well need the money, or not, but at least he's a person. FitBit, on the other hand ... well, you may already know what I think of corporations and their billionaire venture investors. (Read the résumés, then scroll down to "Our Investors". Look for Qualcomm.)

Wishing you a merry as well,

GP

We Built This City-- All of Us

The painfully mangled video above was posted by foreign right-wing propagandist, deranged Islamophobe and hatemonger Mark Steyn. He's trying to help elect Mitt Romney president and he's using the Jefferson Starship's intellectual property-- without their permission, of course; he's a Republican and that's how they role-- to make the ridiculous point about who deserves credit for building what. "We Built This" is something they obsess over on the fringes of the right-wing bubble. Romney was hoping to base his platformless campaign on this out-of-context remark. The Starship song was played over and over again on the closed-circuit sound system at the Republican Convention in Tampa.

The Jefferson Airplane was one of my favorite bands when I was in college and I booked them to play my college just as their second album, Surrealistic Pillow was released. We stayed friends for many years, even after the Airplane broke up and the (Jefferson) Starship was born. But by 1985 when they released the Bernie Taupin/Peter Wolf song, "We Built This City," (from their Knee Deep In The Hoopla album), the only one in the band I had any contact at all with was founder Paul Kantner. "We Built This City" was sung by Mickey Thomas, who I didn't know, and Grace Slick. It was a #1 smash single and the album went platinum.

Mickey Thomas, like many Starship fans, has been offended by the way the far right has expropriated his music and is using it to make Romney's silly-- and quite empty-- point. Here's what he told us about the way Steyn and other wingnuts connected to Romney are using one of the Starship's signature songs:

I am a very strong supporter of our president. I believe he has accomplished amazing things in the face of abject obstruction from the other party. I certainly don't appreciate their misuse of not only my music, but also my video. Once again they completely got it wrong and missed the point.

The "we" in the song was never meant to represent the Starship. To me the "we" was used and sung in the collective sense. It represents people everywhere who believe in the power of music to bring people together and make the world a better place. I resent the negative connotation they express in their use of the song. I believe the president was expressing some of the same ideas. I feel when we build something it is a collaborative effort. I think the president's "that" refers to bridges, roads, neighbors and all things that represent the unbelievable American system. We all benefit from the experience of those who came before us. You don't build things in a vacuum. Once again they attack the president on the very aspects of their own success.

I'm sure there are plenty of artists out there the Republicans can use to promote their misguided views. Starship is not one of them. Keep up the great work Mr. President. I believe the truth will not only endure, it will prevail.

The Republicans should make their propaganda videos from music based on Ted Nugent, Megadeth, Pat Boone and the Osmonds... and stop trying to steal music from all the artists who are appalled by Romney's and Ryan's reactionary and hateful dogma.

Mitt Romney Is More Of An American Girl Than Michele Bachmann

I'm torn when it comes to exposing witless reactionary neanderthal Michele Bachmann's unsuitability as a major party presidential nominee. First of all, she's perfectly suited for the Republican Party nomination; she is what they have turned themselves into. Second... well, what would be the point? To make it easier for Romney to paint himself as the moderate alternative between the Communistic Obama and the fascist Bachmann, when in fact Romney is a pluperfect fascist candidate and Bachmann is just stark raving mad or, as Chris Wallace put it in what may or may not have been a moment of candor, "a flake."

All week I've been meaning to comment on Bachmann's intellectual property theft of the Tom Petty song, "American Girl." But, again, to what end? Let Romney do his own campaigning. Republicans always steal song usage from liberal musicians. Bush (Petty's "I Won't Back Down"), Palin ("Barracuda" by Heart), Reagan (Springsteen's "Born in the USA"), McCain (Jackson Browne's "Running On Empty" and John Mellencamp's "Pink Houses"). And they get cease and desist orders and get sued but they just keep on stealing. It's what Republicans do. It's in their political DNA. By the way, Hillary Clinton asked Petty for permission to use "American Girl" in her campaign, and he agreed and she used it.

While trying to research the Petty-Bachmann brouhaha, I came across another Rolling Stone feature that I thought worth referencing. It's the real Michele Bachmann story-- and written by America's most perceptive political commentator, Matt Taibbi. And it's decidedly not the story Petty told in "American Girl," the song that started to break the unknown Florida boy's career wide open nationally.

Young Michele found Jesus at age 16, not long before she went away to Winona State University and met a doltish, like-minded believer named Marcus Bachmann. After finishing college, the two committed young Christians moved to Oklahoma, where Michele entered one of the most ridiculous learning institutions in the Western Hemisphere, a sort of highway rest area with legal accreditation called the O.W. Coburn School of Law; Michele was a member of its inaugural class in 1979.

Originally a division of Oral Roberts University, this august academy, dedicated to the teaching of "the law from a biblical worldview," has gone through no fewer than three names-- including the Christian Broadcasting Network School of Law. Those familiar with the darker chapters in George W. Bush's presidency might recognize the school's current name, the Regent University School of Law. Yes, this was the tiny educational outhouse that, despite being the 136th-ranked law school in the country, where 60 percent of graduates flunked the bar, produced a flood of entrants into the Bush Justice Department.

Regent was unabashed in its desire that its graduates enter government and become "change agents" who would help bring the law more in line with "eternal principles of justice," i.e., biblical morality. To that end, Bachmann was mentored by a crackpot Christian extremist professor named John Eidsmoe, a frequent contributor to John Birch Society publications who once opined that he could imagine Jesus carrying an M16 and who spent considerable space in one of his books musing about the feasibility of criminalizing blasphemy.

This background is significant considering Bachmann's leadership role in the Tea Party, a movement ostensibly founded on ideas of limited government. Bachmann says she believes in a limited state, but she was educated in an extremist Christian tradition that rejects the entire notion of a separate, secular legal authority and views earthly law as an instrument for interpreting biblical values. As a legislator, she not only worked to impose a ban on gay marriage, she also endorsed a report that proposed banning anyone who "espoused or supported Shariah law" from immigrating to the U.S. (Bachmann seems so unduly obsessed with Shariah law that, after listening to her frequent pronouncements on the subject, one begins to wonder if her crazed antipathy isn't born of professional jealousy.)

This discrepancy may account for why some Tea Party leaders don't buy Bachmann as a champion of small government. "Michele Bachmann is-- what's the old-school term?-- a poser," says Chris Littleton, an Ohio Tea Party leader troubled by her support of the Patriot Act and other big-government interventions. "Look at her record and see how 'Tea Party' she really is."

When Bachmann finished her studies in Oklahoma, Marcus instructed her to do her postgraduate work in tax law-- a command Michele took as divinely ordained. She would later profess to complete surprise at God's choice for her field of study. "Tax law? I hate taxes," she said. "Why should I go and do something like that?" Still, she sucked it up and did as she was told. "The Lord says: Be submissive, wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands."

Nope, not Petty's American Girl by any stretch of the imagination... except in Michele Bachmann's.

P.S.: NOAH'S BEEN THINKING ABOUT MICHELE TOO

Coming up at 10am PT: "It’s The Bachmanns! A Brand-New Show in a Brand-New Genre: Horror-Comedy!"

#

Republican Politicians Preach Property Rights Until It Comes To The Issue Of Their Campaigns Stealing Music

Kentucky voters-- of all stripes-- are withdrawing their support of Kentucky teabagger Rand Paul. His polling numbers have collapsed, even in laughably partisan surveys taken by Republican Party pollster Rasmussen. He got off to a bad start after absolutely thrashing Mitch McConnell's dull, button-down protégé-- who had the backing of the entire Republican Party establishment-- in the primary. Instead of building on that momentum, Rand came charging out of his cage-- in full clown regalia-- screeching about... well, whatever popped into his crazy little mind. He went so far into the stratosphere to claim that he's a champion of the unfettered primacy of private property that he came this close to denouncing the Union for taking away the property rights of the wonderful Confederates in the Civil War. (That was in the context of defending a comment he made about the inappropriateness of sections of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964-- the one that tried finishing what the Civil War started.)

Many Republicans, particularly in the South, are in 100% agreement with Rand on all this-- but most have the street smarts to not bring it up outside of a Klan rally, let alone on TV... let alone on Rachel Maddow's show. But Rand seemed determined to prove to the world that Cheney, so seldom right about anything, was right to characterize him a dangerous moron. Even beyond the touchy issues of race and slavery, even Jeff Sessions-- the actual KKK Senator-- understands, at least these days, that you don't go on TV and say that kind of stuff. Southern oligarchs may feel the Union cheated them out of their "property" but it takes an imbecile like Rand Paul to say it make it part of the public debate again. But he insists he isn't a white supremacist or a racist of any kind-- just a property rights supremacist.

Funny about Republicans and property rights though. They'll shoot you if you walk on their lawn-- with a self righteous smile on their mug-- but when it comes to intellectual property, they see eye to eye with their authoritarian cousins, the Communist Chinese.

You probably remember me telling you that before I became a full-time blogger I worked in the music business. Conservatives, property rights fanatics one and all-- they especially hate the government seizing their hard earned money (i.e.- making them pay taxes) and using it to educate minorities and poor people-- were always causing problems with their unauthorized use of our artists' music. I can't say it wasn't a pleasure calling our in-house attorneys and telling them to go especially hard on GOP hypocrites who thought nothing about putting a popular song into their commercials without so much as asking permission, let alone paying the prevailing rates-- which, by the way, are set by Congress. This hasn't stopped Republicans from using songs-- and creative people are usually not Republicans-- by Democratic artists like Bruce Springsteen, Heart, Jackson Browne, the Foo Fighters, John Mellancamp, Van Halen, Boston... and always without permission, even though it would be virtually impossible at this point for a politician to be unaware that this isn't legal to do.

And I'm sure you can imagine how much fun I had when I found out anti-music scold Joe Lieberman was using the Orleans smash Still the One. John Amato actually called the songwriter, John Hall, ironically now a congressman himself, to beg him to sue Lieberman. Hall demurred, simply asking Lieberman to stop using his music. But many other musicians-- usually ones who aren't running for office-- have been suing... and winning.

Far right fanatic Chuck DeVore's campaign against Barbara Boxer got off to a dismal start when it turned into a war against Eagles drummer Don Henley. It's been all downhill for DeVore since then and this week a judge ruled, at least tentatively, that DeVore not only illegally violated Henley's property rights by using his music in his embarrassingly childish ads but that he did so willfully. "Willfully" is important because it could mean that DeVore is going to wind up with more than a slap on the wrist.

This big decision, outlined in a 32-page tentative order, potentially holds major ramifications for politicians throughout the nation. (Judges are free to change their minds after issuing a tentative ruling, but it's rare; the two sides were in court today arguing over the tentative ruling). Over the past few months, several musicians have pressed copyright claims against politicians including John McCain, Charlie Crist, and Joe Walsh. 

The case against Chuck DeVore was the first to get to judgment. 

In response to Henley's lawsuit, DeVore claimed that the First Amendment protected political speech and he had a fair use right to Henley's work. In court papers, DeVore claimed that in using two of Henley's songs-- and rewriting the lyrics-- he was parodying Hollywood's affection for liberals. Using a copyrighted song as part of a parody (poking fun at the original work) is allowed more often than using a copyright in a satire (when you're poking fun at something else).  

U.S. District Court Judge James Selna framed the major legal conundrum this way:

"This case raises the somewhat novel issue of whether... criticism of the author of an original work falls on either the parody or satire side of the line. In other words, is work which appropriates from the original to criticize the original's author-- but does not directly criticize the content of original-- validly classified as 'parody'?"

In looking for an answer, Judge Selna cites a number of recent disputes, including a lawsuit brought by JD Salinger to stop a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye and another case where an individual was sued for writing a song, "I Need a Jew," with a tune and lyrics similar to the Disney classic "When You Wish Upon a Star." In those cases, judges split, one finding the Rye sequel wasn't a parody and the other ruling that the song making fun of Walt Disney's purported anti-Semitism was.

Judge Selna notes, "the act of ridiculing and lampooning public figures is a rich part of our First Amendment tradition" and "in many cases, the most effective tool of ridiculing a public figure...is through that person's own creations."

On the other hand, Selna takes great pains to analyze the character and lyrics of each of DeVore's songs to determine whether he took too much liberty in what he borrowed from Henley's underlying composition.

He finds that the song "All She Wants to Do is Tax" (based on Henley's "All She Wants to Do is Dance") is pure satire because it fails to take aim at the original or its author, and thus it lacks justification to borrow. He finds that "After the Hope of November is Gone (based on Henley's "The Boys of Summer") lampoons Henley as an Obama supporter and would thus be justified in appropriating some of Henley's song. However, the judge finds the song goes far beyond what's necessary to hold the singer up to ridicule.

Neither song is fair use, the judge rules.

McCain, whose (wife's) immense wealth has allowed him to drag Jackson Browne's suit against him out for almost a full year, is still in litigation. McCain stole Browne's biggest hit, "Running On Empty," not to describe his own pathetic, losing campaign-- or that of his delusional running-mate, but to attempt to besmirch President Obama. And just Monday David Bryne took Florida Governor Charlie Crist to court for stealing one of his signature Talking Heads songs, Road to Nowhere. Byrne, who does not license his songs commercially, wants a million dollars in damages from Crist. Byrne announced the lawsuit, and the reasons he was pursuing it, on his own blog:

Besides being theft, 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. The general public might also think I simply license the use of my songs to anyone who will pay the going rate, but that’s not true either, as I have never licensed a song for use in an ad. I do license songs to commercial films and TV shows (if they pay the going rate), and to dance companies and student filmmakers mostly for free. But not to ads.

I’m a bit of a throwback that way, as I still believe songs occasionally mean something to people-- they obviously mean something personal to the writer, and often to the listener as well. A personal and social meaning is diluted when that same song is used to sell a product (or a politician). If Crist and his campaign folks had asked to use the song, I would have said no-- even if they had offered a lot of money, such as I have been offered in the past for ad use (though I’ve always turned these offers down).

I believe my audience is aware of this no-ad use policy of mine, and part of the respect I am accorded as an artist is due to my maintaining this policy. Needless to say, if they thought I’d licensed a song to a political campaign they might not respect me as much in the morning.

It might be pointed out that Republican campaign organizations have done this kind of thing before. John McCain’s campaign used the Jackson Browne song “Running on Empty” and Reagan’s folks used Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” Both were used illegally without permission, and in the case of the Jackson Browne song a lawsuit was brought. After the Republicans lost several motions attempting to dismiss Browne’s complaint, they settled with him. Part of the settlement said that the Republican National Committee promised to respect artists’ rights and to obtain licenses for the use of copyrighted works in the future. So, it’s not like they weren’t warned, or hadn’t been burned before.

Ironically, the Rand Paul situation is over his use of music by a band with whom he does see eye-to-eye with politically, Rush, a group confessing to get it's songwriting inspiration from wingnut propagandist Ayn Rand-- for whom Rand Paul was named. I guess that's why he thought he could just use "Tom Sawyer" and "The Spirit of Radio" with impunity-- and without paying.

In Web ads and at campaign appearances, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul sometimes has called on the music of the band Rush to give his message a little pop.

It turns out the campaign wasn't using the music with the band's permission, according to Rush's attorney, Robert Farmer.

Farmer, general counsel for the Anthem Entertainment Group Inc. in Toronto, which is Rush's record label, has sent a letter to Paul campaign officials informing them that they have violated copyright laws-- and urging them to stop."This is not a political issue-- this is a copyright issue," Farmer said in an interview. "We would do this no matter who it is."

Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign manager, said in an e-mail: "The background music Dr. Paul has played at events is a non-issue. The issues that matter in this campaign are cutting out-of-control deficits, repealing Obama Care and opposing cap and trade."

He did not say if the campaign would stop using the band's music.

Farmer said his next legal step depends on the formal response he gets from the Paul campaign. Defendants in civil suits over copyright infringement can be subject to damages and fines.