No Bed of Roses for Trump: Queen Revokes Rights to Signature Anthem

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Donald Trump received the Republican Party’s nomination, but it has been no pleasure cruise since then. At Donald Trump, Jr.’s casting of the votes for the New York delegation, Donald Trump received the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. The next day, Trump accepted the nomination with Queen’s “We Are the Champions” heralding in the background. Shortly after, Queen took to twitter, declaring the song’s usage “an unauthorised use at the Republican Convention against our wishes.” The band pulled Trump’s rights to play the song after the nominating convention.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) purchased a license to play the song at the convention, which is required for any public performance of a copyrighted song. According to a spokesperson for Broadcast Media Inc. (BMI), the largest music rights organization in the U.S., the RNC initially received a “Convention” license, followed by being replaced with a “political entity” license. Although similar, the political entity license maintains a clause that allows a band to request song removal. Following Trump’s victory stunt, Queen formally requested that BMI revoke the license.

This is not the first time that Queen has been unhappy with Trump’s usage of its musical catalog. In June, the band’s guitarist, Brian May, indicated he was dissatisfied with the politicization of the song. At last, Queen has proven that they are indeed the champions over Trump’s usage of the group’s music.

Queen is not the only band to criticize Trump. The Rolling Stones publicly denounced Trump’s usage of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” during his acceptance speech. Additionally, Adele, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Turtles, Elton John, Neil Young, and George Harrison’s estate have objected to Trump’s song usage.

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