Clive Palmer told record label he was “composer” of altered Twisted Sister song
The Twisted Sister hit at the centre of a lawsuit is “ITSELF A RIP OFF” and Clive Palmer is a composer, his party director wrote to Universal Music.
The national director of the United Australia Party has admitted it was “misleading” to tell a record label Clive Palmer was a composer when he had simply taken the lyrics to a Twisted Sister song and changed them to use in his campaign ads.
The change — which transformed the iconic hit We’re Not Gonna Take It into Aussies Ain’t Gonna Cop It — ran the risk of listeners mistaking “cop it” for “carpet” and sounded like an ad for floor tiles, a producer warned Mr Palmer.
But the billionaire was convinced of its electoral genius, writing back “well done” from an alias email going by the name “Terry Smith”, after the producer sent him an edited cut.
Ultimately the ad campaign failed because the UAP did not win a single seat in the 2019 federal election, party director James McDonald told the Federal Court on Wednesday.
Mr McDonald, who previously worked on Mr Palmer’s venture to build a replica of the Titanic and unsuccessfully ran for a West Australian senate seat in the 2019 election, gave evidence as part of a copyright case Universal Music has brought against Mr Palmer.
The record label holds the copyright to the 1984 Twisted Sister hit and says Mr Palmer used a butchered version of the popular song without permission.
The record label emailed UAP to ask them to stop using it immediately on January 3 last year and Mr McDonald fired back an email five days later, the court heard.
“’We’re Not Gonna Take It’ IS ITSELF A RIP OFF of the Christmas carol ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’,” he wrote.
“One only needs to listen to the first five seconds to work that out.
“As you are aware the lyrics used in our party advertisement were composed by Mr Palmer and he owns the copyright to the lyrics.”
He wrote Universal it had “no rights whatsoever” to the UAP version.
Under questioning from barrister Patrick Flynn, Mr McDonald said “I guess, yes” when asked if what he wrote about Mr Palmer composing the lyrics was “misleading”.
He said he doesn’t regularly send misleading letters but Mr Palmer told him to write it.
A later letter stated the UAP would lose more than $12 million if the ads were pulled due to an injunction.
Mr McDonald said the campaign “objectively” failed because no candidates were elected and rejected a suggestion from Mr Flynn that the UAP influenced preference counts.
The party used how-to-vote cards, but voters didn’t have to follow them, he told the court.
“It is completely their choice.”
Media producer and former UAP candidate David Wright said Mr Palmer asked him to approach Universal to negotiate using the song in October 2018.
Mr Wright, who contested the seat of Wright in 2019, said he understood copyright permission was required.
“You wouldn’t seek to negotiate on behalf of Mr Palmer to acquire a license he didn’t need, would you?” Mr Flynn asked.
“No,” Mr Wright replied, laughing.
The court listened to several versions of the song, each with slightly altered lyrics, recorded by session musicians who were hired by the UAP campaign.
Following the recording session, Mr Wright wrote to “Terry Smith” on November 14, 2018.
“I am not sure the cop it one is the best as it sounds like ‘we’re not going to carpet’. Good if we were advertising floor tiles. You can’t unhear this now,” he wrote.
But two days later it was the version Mr Palmer settled on.
“I personally didn’t think it was the best take, but it was the one that he chose,” Mr Wright said.
The hearing continues.
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