I well remember the Sydney Olympics and the unlicensed use of music between every point during the beach volleyball. The much-vaunted ‘best games ever’ seemed to have a mandate to do whatever it wanted when it came to violating copyright and they were not alone.  Two decades later [probably fake news] the Trump campaign violating the copyright of any number of alarmed music acts with seeming impunity. Years have now passed in either case with nothing I have heard addressing the problem – not even a heartfelt apology. After the last Winter Olympics in Beijing, musicians Heavy Young Heathens filed a lawsuit against the American figure skating pair Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier and against NBC, saying that their copyright for the song “House of the Rising Sun” was violated when the skaters used it for their winter Olympics short program and that the broadcaster had earned a fortune from advertising revenue. The compositions of brothers Robert and Aron Marderosian have been featured in numerous television shows, movies, trailers, advertisements, video games, Deadpool and The Simpsons. House of the Rising Sun had been used previously for the film The Magnificent Seven and Ford car commercials so it’s not as though the skaters and the broadcasters didn’t know that and winning an Olympic silver medal, for all that it is touted as a note of national pride, is not exactly fair compensation for copyright violation. The Marderosian brothers allege they were never contacted by anyone associated with U.S. Figure Skating about licensing the track for their performance or that broadcasters NBC, USA Network and Peacock ever inquired either.

The lawsuit reads “These violations cause great harm to the value of command for such a well-known piece of their recording catalogue, and insults the integrity of their professional reputation. While Knierim/Frazier, USFS, NBC, USA and PEACOCK are all profiting from the revenue the 2022 Winter Olympics, the Marderosians have been, and continue to be deprived of what their creation ‘House of the Rising Sun’ earns them per license. Lawyers for the group says they are entitled to damages, and this isn’t the first time the group has filed a lawsuit over licensing. In 2017, they sued Warner Bros. over the use of the theme song for FOX’s Lucifer.

It would seem that this is a never-ending problem. Is it that corporations or individuals simply don’t know the law or don’t care? Given the size of legal departments for large corporations, media platforms and particularly broadcasters, there would necessarily be a copyright specialist attached to each one.  Perhaps their main focus is not to recognise copyright infringement and pay said dues, but to shield the violators from prosecution. Or is copyright violation and plagiarism now so rife that no one actually cares even when it is as blatantly obvious as during the world-wide broadcast of an Olympic event?

With the Commonwealth Games about to kick off in Birmingham, UK, will we be seeing the same level of infringement? It’s not as though British musicians have been immune to the problem. The Verve sampled the Rolling Stones [Mick and Keef – how dare they!] to create Bittersweet Symphony but even though the Verve earned major money from the inclusion of four bass notes from a Stones track, the money involved in advertising revenue from the likes of the Olympics Games and the Commonwealth equivalent is something else. With musicians suing each other cases are often settled out of court with little more than shared song writing credits resulting but taking on a deep-pocketed major broadcaster is another story. More than likely the four years between these major sporting events would elapse before the case ever got to court – if it got to court – and even then, the common belief that a mere apology would suffice, may well be the extent of the damages. It is doubtful that the Trump camp even acknowledged that an infringement had taken place and with much bigger fish to fry concerning the Capitol riots, it is doubtful that an infringement case would ever be filed and the put-upon musicians whose work was used illegally came to be associated with Trumpian politics whether they agreed or not.

According to NBC, the asking cost for Superbowl advertising for 2022 was $7 million for a 30-second advert during the game and that was considered a bargain given the number of people tuning in. Big money. No doubt they could afford a copyright action, should it be necessary, as a mere drop in the bucket if anyone even wants to try and take them on. With the Winter Olympics taking place in China, even with common agreement via the Berne Convention about copyright remaining with the creator, China has no equivalent to the doctrine of “fair use” and it is doubtful that filling the coffers of NBC comes under any heading that might be considered an exception to the rule such as for educational purposes although an object lesson in capitalist greed might not be out of the question.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the British broadcaster does or doesn’t do but given the history of British arrogance and indifference to the plight of subject nations over the centuries of the Commonwealth, I wouldn’t be holding my breath. After all the Stones, the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Queen are considered to be national treasures and public property so if ‘We are the champions’ rings as a Brit steps up for a gold medal no doubt a case could be made for in ‘the public domain’ as could ‘Start me up’ as sprinters take up their positions at the start of the hundred metres. The Beatles could get in on the act with ‘Twist and Shout’ as general motivation but of course they borrowed the song from the Isley Brothers, so strictly speaking they aren’t eligible but then again the agreement of all four members of the Beatles would be required to give such permission unless everyone dead or alive ceded such decisions to Paul and there is anyone still around who remembers the brothers Isely.