So opens a letter that attorney Howard E. King sent to President Trump on Monday, two days after the massacre of eight men and three women — including two brothers and a couple that had been married for over 60 years — at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Defending his appearance at the Saturday rallies,Trump told Laura Ingraham of Fox News in an interview on Monday that “rallies are meant to be fun” — despite the fact that he opened both events by addressing the Tree of Life murders.The president is scheduled to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday afternoon, over the objections of its mayor and Jewish community leaders there.
“Pharrell has not, and will not, grant you permission to publicly perform or otherwise broadcast or disseminate any of his music,” continues King’s letter to Trump.
Pharrell joins the end of a long queue of artists who have made their distaste for the President and his use of their songs known: The Rolling Stones, Adele, The Turtles, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, The O’Jays, Neil Young and Earth, Wind & Fire among them.
The use of these songs by politicians and campaigns whose policies are antithetical to those musicians’ values is a perennial topic on the campaign trail, but one that is not very well-understood — and can end up completely out of the artists’ control.
Put simply, a political campaign can request to sign a license with a performance rights organization such as ASCAP, BMI, or both, which are authorized to give events, including political rallies, the legal right to play any one of the 23.5 million songs that the organizations administer between them; 12 million in BMI’s case and 11.5 million under ASCAP’s umbrella. (Not to mention SESAC, another organization, which controls about 1 million songs.)
Even so, that doesn’t mean a campaign is fully protected. As ASCAP explains, even if a campaign signs a contract with them, they could still be sued on three grounds: “The ‘Right of Publicity,’ which in many states provides image protection for famous people or artists; the Lanham Act, which covers the confusion or dilution of a trademark (such as a band or artist name) through its unauthorized use; and ‘False Endorsement,’ where the use of the artist’s identifying work implies that the artist supports a product or candidate.”