Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Watch Usher, Sheryl Crow Tell Politicians 'Stop Using Our Songs'
Rolling Stone: Donald Trump has used a number of recognizable classic rock songs during his campaign by Queen, the Rolling Stones and R.E.M. On Sunday's Last Week Tonight, a team of high-profile musicians – Usher, Sheryl Crow, Heart, Michael Bolton, John Mellencamp, Cyndi Lauper, Josh Groban and Imagine Dragons' Dan Reynolds – united to deliver a clear message to politicians: stop using our songs without permission.
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2 comments:
I completely agree with the musicians on this. It is very disrespectful for politician to abuse the rights of musicians and just take songs as they please. For one, it's illegal if they don't sign off on it and by doing that, you're not giving they the recognition they deserve. Nowadays, almost no fan is buying these artist's music which hurts them financially, and it makes it worse when politicians like Trump take these songs which also hurts the artists financially. Also, when politicians play a certain musician's song, people psychologically tie the song into their campaign, and I'm sure Queen doesn't want to be ties in with then Trump campaign. Musician already have a hard time building up their business, and it makes it harder when certain politicians take songs without permission.
I fail to understand why politicians who are trying (and clearly failing) to portray themselves of high moral character are perfectly willing to literally steal from other people. This is particularly dim of the politicians when you take into account the drop in the bucket licensing would be compared to the amounts of money being shifted around in the campaign process. The argument can be made that none of the artists featured in John Oliver's piece are exactly hurting for funds, but the music is still their own and they have a right to control where it goes to a degree. Certainly when their music is being used for something as ideologically driven as a political campaign, it is essential for the artists to retain control over the music, and blatantly taking the music without permission just hurts the artists, and now that this has come out, will hopefully serve to hurt the offenders enough to stop doing it.
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