In Choreographed Campaigns, Candidates Stumble Over Choice of Music

It has become as much a part of the presidential campaign season as the baby kiss or the candidate selfie: the inevitable moment when a musician denounces a politician for using his or her song without permission. It happened recently, when Steven Tyler of Aerosmith demanded that Trump stop using his band’s 1973 hit “Dream On” at campaign events. At a time when every detail in a political campaign seems minutely choreographed, it can be puzzling why so many politicians risk a public shaming from popular musicians. One theory attributes the problem simply to the wide gulf between the worlds of politics and entertainment.

“There are more candidates, more media, and fewer campaign staff who are knowledgeable about these issues,” said Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, which circulates to political campaigns a set of guidelines about copyright issues in music. “The bench of people who know about music licensing can’t be that deep.” The disputes also point to what experts say is a legal gray area over licensing rules for music in political campaigns. The issue gets more complicated when the uses of these songs are captured on video and shared on social media -- as they almost inevitably are.