Unsatisfied with merely kicking a dead horse, Jackson Browne successfully sued war hero/maverick John McCain for unlawful use of one of his songs during the disastrous 2008 presidential campaign.
The famed singer/songwriter’s “Running on Empty” was used without his permission in a negative political ad which depicted then Senator Barack Obama and his energy policies as misguided.
Concerned with being associated with a failed presidential bid, Jackson promptly sued the Ohio Republican Party, who was responsible for said mudslinging.
“Thousands of people come to an event or they see it on TV and they see John Mellencamp’s song being used or Ann and Nancy Wilson’s song being used and they assume a kind of solidarity and a kind of endorsement that simply does not exist,” Browne told the Associated Press in an interview.
Along with apologizing profusely for their part in a criminal act, the GOP settled out of court for what was likely a tidy sum, and vowed to never again allow their hormones to get the best of them…Nevermind, I was thinking of one of the other dozen or so sexual scandals currently facing our moral superiors.
Browne’s lawyer, Lawrence Iser, conveniently alleges that the frivolous lawsuit was not done to justify his own overpriced monthly retainer, but for the sake of struggling musicians everywhere.
“The educational significance cannot be understated,” Iser said. “People like Jackson have the right to license the use of their songs for political campaigns, or to choose not to.”
The McCain campaign also raised the ire of tax and spend liberals when the functionally retarded Sarah Palin violated copyright law by using Heart’s “Barracuda” to whip an equally brainless mob into a needless frenzy.
