At the end of Sarah Palin's speech on Wednesday night, the McCain campaign blasted out Heart's iconic song "Barracuda" to pump up the atmosphere--as if to say, "look out, this woman is dangerous". Only problem is, as we all know by now, they were violating copyright law by using Heart's song without permission. Heart issued a complaint and Sony and BMG issued a cease and desist the next day.
This latest episode is just the latest in a long string of at least eight copyright violations by the McCain campaign and state Republican parties this cycle. Each time they violate the law, we hear about the artist complaining, there are a few stories, and then we move on. But it's time to stop moving on. How can we allow a campaign to claim "country first", when they repeatedly and cynically violate the country's laws and the rights of American citizens who make their living from their art?
For a look at the breathtaking cynicism, follow me over the jump.
John McCain proudly proclaims that part of his platform, indeed a central tenet of the "ownership society" is protection of creative industries from piracy.
John McCain Will Protect The Creative Industries From Piracy. The entertainment industry is both a vital sector of the domestic economy and among the largest U.S. exporters. While the Internet has provided tremendous opportunity for the creators of copyrighted works, including music and movies, to distribute their works around the world at low cost, it has also given rise to a global epidemic of piracy. John McCain supports efforts to crack down on piracy, both on the Internet and off.
So John McCain supports the efforts of groups like the RIAA, who have filed many-thousand-dollar lawsuits against 12-year-old girls for downloading copyrighted music. But McCain himself finds those laws inconvenient and repeatedly violates them to hijack artists' work to advance his own agenda unlawfully.
The violations this campaign are legion, including the piracy of songs and material from
Orleans, John Cougar Mellencamp, Mike Myers, Frankie Valli, Jackson Browne, Van Halen, and of course most recently, Heart. Jackson Browne, in his lawsuit against McCain for using "Running On Empty", also claims that ABBA issued a previous cease and desist for using "Take a Chance on Me".
Now, this could just be an honest eight mistakes, right? Wrong. McCain knows perfectly well he's violating copyright law, after being called on for using the Rocky theme song:
After playing the anthemic horns of the "Rocky" theme song at his rallies, the owner of the song's copyright telephoned the McCain campaign to politely complain it was being used without permission, McCain said.
"It wasn't a formal complaint or a letter. Someone just called on the phone and said 'Hey, that's our property,'" he said.
And yet, McCain continues to steal other people's property, falsely implying those artist support his campaign. As Jackson Browne's attorney put it:
Not only have Senator McCain and his agents plainly infringed Mr Browne's copyright in 'Running on Empty' but the federal courts have long held that the unauthorized use of a famous singer's voice in a commercial constitutes a false endorsement and a violation of the singer's right of publicity.
I know it doesn't seem like a very big deal when we hear the latest story about McCain using a song without permission, but the pattern is appalling. He is repeatedly, knowingly and cynically breaking copyright law, stealing the property of others, and implicitly lying by using the stolen property as a tacit campaign endorsement.
This should be a debate question. He should be confronted with each and every violation, and asked how this squares with his vision of an Ownership Society.