Lara Trump Records Her Version of ‘Won’t Back Down’ and It’s Bad… Really Bad

Well, let’s look on the bright side, shall we? She was going to run for the Senate and now she’s given that up to go into show business. She has zero ability for either, but she can do a lot less damage in show business, right? :))

Well, there are “rights” and there are “rights” when it comes to music rights.

What the Petty estate was complaining about (and rightly so) was the UNAUTHORIZED use of TOM PETTY’S recording. The proper thing to do when seeking to use an existing recording is to contact the artist or the estate and get permission to use it. Said artist or estate has the right to refuse the use–usually, if the person/organization seeking permission is a charity or non-profit organization, the permission is granted; if the intended use is for personal gain or politically motivated (especially if the user seems to have opposing values from the artist), then the permission will likely be denied.

But, if someone wants to record their own version of a song, then they have no obligation to contact the artist or the estate; such rights are generally held by the song’s publisher or publishing agency. Some songs, however, are still retained by the songwriter if the “publisher” is an agency set up by the songwriter–if this is the case, then requests to record a song may be denied (Prince, for instance, typically refused to authorize the recording of any of his songs by other artists without the artist or their manager contacting Prince directly and “begging” to record the song–or Prince felt the artist was “worthy” of the song; ABBA’s Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus were also notorious for refusing to authorize other artists’ performing ABBA songs–this lessened somewhat in the wake of the “Mamma Mia” musical but when Madonna wanted to use a sample of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! [A Man After Midnight]” for her song “Hung Up,” she had to contact the pair and plead her case and the pair continue to limit cover versions).

I don’t know the specifics of who controls what aspects of the Petty music estate but, again, using a Tom Petty recording DEFINITELY requires permission of the estate but if you want to record your own version of “American Girl” or “Refugee” or “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” you really just need to contact the publisher or ASCAP or BMI (the organizations through which most US music publishers are represented*). A side note: Even artists who write and perform their own songs are required, when touring in the US (at least), to get permission from ASCAP or BMI (whichever agency their publishing uses) to play their own songs in concert. It’s technically a songwriter’s fee that’s collected and it’s usually just a few pennies per song (in some cases, the amount could be just a few pennies for the entire set list) and the artists usually recoup this meager fee (which generally covers the entire tour, regardless of what specific songs are played in an individual concert) through merchandise sales. It’s typically the newer artists just starting their careers who can be most hurt by this but, as I said, the total amount is pretty insubstantial. (The same fees are paid by radio stations and nightclubs playing recorded music. Even nightclubs which host live music may limit the performers’ music selections to songs covered by the fees they pay to ASCAP and BMI.)

*There are a few other organizations that have limited representation in the US (I think SESAC is the biggest as it represents a lot of Latin music artists) but these other groups tend to have arrangements with ASCAP and/or BMI which allows these groups’ songs to be covered without the individual artists’ having to pay a lot of groups for the performance rights.