In case you haven’t kept up with the movings and shakings of Clive Palmer, he’s recently copped a serve from ’80s legends Twisted Sister for essentially re-writing their 1984 hit We’re Not Gonna Take It.
The re-written tune was featured prominently in televisual advertisements promoting Palmers’ United Australia Party (you may know them from their truly awful ‘Make Australia Great’ billboards’) and quickly raised the ire of Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider and band manager Jay Jay French.
No we do not endorse @PalmerUtdParty! We are contacting our legal team to address this and if that doesn’t work…I’LL BE DOWN UNDER IN THREE WEEKS TO DEAL WITH IT MYSELF! https://t.co/h9T2O2GAkQ
— Dee Snider (@deesnider) January 1, 2019
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
The story now continues after 3AW locked down a copyright lawyer to comment on the case this morning.
“I think Clive is toast,” Lawyer and copyright expert at the University of Canberra Dr Baer Arnold said.
“He appears to just have gone ahead and ripped them off, and he’s not going to win in court on that basis.”
In a tweet responding to the interview, Snider revealed that Palmers’ people reached out to Universal Music Group who handle Twisted Sister’s publishing catalogue and were supplied with the licencing fee. Only to totally ignore that and record their own version anyway.
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
This does not bode well for Palmer when or if the case ever reaches court.
It does, however, serve as a warning to any other far-right politicians that are thinking of messing with legendary ’80s hair-metal bands.
