Oh Come All Ye Faithful copyright enthusiasts

Speaking of tunes that feature during the festive season, Oh Come All Ye Faithful is one that surely gained a new lease of life three years ago the world over as the result of the spirited actions of Australia’s Clive Palmer.

After embarking on his multimillion-dollar political campaign for the 2019 federal election, billionaire Palmer was evidently put out to learn that he’d have to pay Universal Music, which owns the rights to Twisted Sister’s We’re not Gonna Take It, $150,000 for a licence to use the song. He initially claimed to have independently created Aussies Not Gonna Cop It (in case you’re not familiar with it, to literally the identical tune of Twisted Sister’s iconic song, Palmer’s lyrics changed to, “Australia ain’t gonna cop it, no Australia’s not gonna cop it, Aussies not gonna cop it any more.”)

Universal sued on the basis of copyright infringement (that Palmer had taken a substantial part of the musical work,We’re Not Gonna Take It, without permission). The case is a cracker anyway. Should you need more reason to revisit the proceedings, during the trial, Palmer’s lawyers argued that he shouldn’t be on the hook for copyright infringement, because Twisted Sister’s song ripped-off Oh Come All Ye Faithful. Dee Snider of Twisted Sister has famously mashed and faithfully demonstrated the common chord progression himself. For Universal and Twisted Sister, the upshot was that Christmas came early as Palmer had to pay them $1.5m in damages for copyright infringement.

For more information about copyright law generally, see our information sheet here. It covers fair dealing exceptions (Palmer’s lawyers also sought to rely on a defence of parody). We also have templates available that include fair licensing terms. For Clive and others, see the Music information pack developed with APRA AMCOS and AMIN this year, here.