Friday, September 05, 2008

Don't use our Barracuda

The McCain/Palin campaign continues to have bad luck in finding theme songs. The songwriters Ann and Nancy Wilson have asked that their song Barracuda not be used in connection with Ms. Palin's appearances. As I noted in this item, this is a good argument for the assertion of an artist's control over the use of their work. With all the difficulties they've had in finding a tune whose composer will let them use, the McCain/Palin campaign may well soon discover a previously unknown fondness for material in the public domain, which thanks to McCain's earlier votes on copyright legislation, now includes only a very small amount of music composed within his lifetime.

1 comment:

DJA said...

I noted this as well. I think it's hilarious that they would even want to use that song as "Sarah Barracuda's" theme. I mean, have they ever listened to the lyrics?

I think it would be fun to actually try to come up with a list of the songs written during McCain's lifetime that are actually in PD. As you say, it would be a damned short list.