"Barracuda": Do the Wilson Sisters Have a Case?

The radical left is up in arms today because the Wilson sisters (Ann and Nancy), who were the leaders of the rock group Heart, are complaining that the McCain-Palin campaign used their 1978 hit song "Barracuda" without their permission.

Waaah! The poor coverage of the legal issue here by the mainstream media ("MSM") is another reason why the MSM is held in such disdain.

Basically, political campaigns buy a license from a performing-rights organization such as BMI or ASCAP for their campaigns, the same way that restaurants may buy such licenses to play music inside their premises. Such licenses entitle the campaign to use just about any song that it chooses as background music. As long as the campaign doesn't use the music in an adaptive use (for example, as backing to a commercial, as the McCain campaign earlier did with the Frankie Valli song "Can't Take My Eyes Off You"), the campaign is free to use any of the songs licensed through the performing-rights organization.

So, when Heart sends out a press release to say that they have issued a "cease-and-desist" letter to the McCain campaign, as they did on Thursday morning, all that means is that they have embarked on a PR offensive. They actually have no right to cause either campaign to cease and desist from playing their songs, whether it's "Barracuda" (Sarah Palin's nickname), "Magic Man" (Barack Obama's self-image), "Heartless" or "Dog and Butterfly," as long as the campaign has secured the appropriate license -- unless the campaign somehow represents that use of the song constitutes an endorsement by the artist (not likely).

When the McCain-Palin campaign ignored the request and used the song Thursday night when Sarah Palin came on stage, Ann and Nancy Wilson made a scene reported by the MSM. Nancy claimed that she felt "completely fvcked over." I wonder if she'll turn down her next royalty check or withdraw her songs from pulic performance as a result.

Naah, didn't think so.

Nancy is married to the Oscar-winning writer/director Cameron Crowe, whose own donation record (all to Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer) reveals his leftist political viewpoint. No surprise that she doesn't really care about other people's legal rights.

I should add that I met Ann and Nancy Wilson in 1976, when Heart had just released its first album on Mushroom Records. They seemed nice. But shortly thereafter, in 1978, they decided to screw Mushroom Records and jump to CBS, right in the middle of recording their second album -- and they got away with it when Mushroom, desperate to release the second album despite Heart's breach of contract, filled it with two live covers of Led Zeppelin songs that Mushroom had previously agreed never to release. I was shocked at the time that Heart would do something so sleazy ... but this phony "cease-and-desist" controversy is consistent with it, although 30 years later.