One day Clive Palmer will be cited because of a reason that isn’t objectively silly. Today, friends, is not that day.
So you’ve no doubt surmised that he’s making a political comeback – a year of billboards is a bit of a clue – and to that end he decided to rewrite Twisted Sister’s signature 1984 hit ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ to plug his United Australia party in TV ads.
The band, however, were not well pleased with this.
Twisted Sister does not endorse Australian politician Clive Palmer, never heard of him and was never informed of Clive Palmer's use of a re -written version of our song Were Not Gonna Take It.
We receive no money from its use and we are investigating how we can stop it.— Jay Jay French (@jayjayfrench) January 1, 2019
And there was talk of lawsuits, with the band claiming that there had been an ignored Cease and Desist over the matter followed by Clive claiming that he had written the lyrics which he used meaning he owned the copyright on his version and that he would sue the band if they infringed it.
Just for the record, you can’t change the lyrics and release a new version of an existing copyrighted song without the permission of the original author. Not even Weird Al can do that.
There’s another problem with that in that it appears that Palmer knew the band had the rights to the song and enquired about permission, at least according to this tweet from frontman Dee Snider.
Oh it's worst than that! @CliveFPalmer @PalmerUtdParty contacted my publishing company @UMG about licensing the song (which means they were aware that they had to) were told the licensing fee…THEN WENT OFF AND RECORDED IT WITHOUT A LICENSE! They can't even claim ignorance! https://t.co/dLAfOhCWLi
— Dee Snider (@deesnider) January 3, 2019
Here’s where it gets fun: Snider is playing in Sydney and Melbourne later this month and Palmer is now calling on your Home Affairs minister, Peter Dutton, to cancel his visa via a post on Facebook.
On what grounds, you might ask? Strap in.
“The song ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ as an alleged musical work was not written by Dee Snider. The music was originally arranged as a cappella piece from the hymn ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ first composed in the mid 1700s,”
Sorry, what? Clive is arguing that his version is based on a hymn now, not the Twisted Sister song?
“Others may have documented the instrumentation, but the melody was already present. As Twisted Sister never remunerated the original arranger, we do not understand how they have ever had any claim to its copyright. It seems Universal Music Group may have been misled at the time of paying the group’s front man Dee Snider money for something he never owned.”
“We are concerned about defamation and threats made by Dee Snider and as such believe the minister for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton should reject his visa, given the current crackdown.”
Pay money back? B-but look at the tiny house the band have to live in!
There are a few teeny tiny holes in this argument, though.
First up, the idea that ‘O Come All Ye Faithful”s melody is the same as ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ is a claim which is… let’s go with “dubious”.
Sure, as we saw with the ‘Down Under’/’Kookaburra’ case, such infringement would have to be determined by the courts, but the only party with the power to instigate such a case would be the owner of the song – and that’s a problem since, under Australian law, copyright only lasts for 70 years.
That means any song from before 1949 is fair game – an epoch which, you might notice, includes the mid-1700s.
In any case, how does any of this equate with banning someone’s visa to tour? While it is at the minister’s discretion, it’s hard to justify without a substantial criminal record.
So, will Snider be banned from Australia? Will Universal Music retrospectively recognise Clive Palmer as the author of the song? In a sense, aren’t we all the author of ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’?
(After all, according to this site, Palmer is the author of the Beatles song ‘Blackbird’, which might come as a bit of a shock to Paul McCartney.)
In any case, Australian politics in 2019 is already ridiculous and the election hasn’t even been called yet. Please send help.