Peters to be issued cease and desist by band despite insisting he wouldn’t be
Winston Peters and NZ First will be forwarded a cease and desist notice for their use of a British punk band’s song at political rallies despite Peters insisting he’s not expecting to be issued any such thing.
Peters has been playing and quoting the popular song “Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba at New Zealand First events.
The song which includes the lyrics, “I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down”, was most recently used by Peters as he took the stage for his state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday in which he compared race relations to Nazi Germany.
Peters, a lawyer, doesn’t appear to think he’s done anything wrong, issuing a statement saying: “If the reporter had any clue of the law, and not just some opinionated fake news headline, they wouldn’t have bothered publishing this nonsense.”
He goes on to say, “New Zealand First has not received any cease-and-desist phone call, email, letter, or anything of the sort from the former band nor any other representative – and we don’t expect to”.
But he’s about to.
Stuff has been told by APRA AMCOS, the music licensing body, that a cease and desist letter will be forwarded to NZ First and Peters from Sony Music Publishing.
In a statement to Stuff from Chumbawamba’s lead guitarist, Boff Whalley, the band says it wrote Tubthumbing as a song of hope and positivity, “so it seems entirely odd that the 'I get knocked down...' refrain is being used by New Zealand's Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters as he barks his divisive, small-minded, bigoted policies during his recent speeches”.
APRA has confirmed what Chumbawamba also told Stuff, that Peters did not have permission to use the song:
“It would seem that no one has fully considered the rights of the owners of the music and the implications of using it in such a way
“Anyone that knows this band and its views would quickly realise that such use in such context would never be approved.”
APRA says it is a commonly accepted practice to seek approval to use someone else’s property. Requests to use music by political parties are commonly received.
However, it says no further approval was sought from NZ First or Peters.
APRA licences the public performance of music in Aotearoa and says the venue where Peters delivered his state of the nation speech, the Palmerston North Convention Centre, is owned by the Palmerston North City Council and is therefore licensed for the public performance of music.
But that licence is subject to exclusions including “the performance of music in any manner that could reasonably be regarded as suggesting an approval, affiliation or endorsement by an artist, songwriter, publisher or record label of any business or goods/services including a political party or cause”.