A Copyright Complaint From R.E.M. Got a Trump Tweet Removed from Twitter

From Esquire

After declaring a completely unnecessary state of emergency Friday, the president tweeted a video made by a right-wing "memesmith" who goes by the name Carpe Donktum. That would be hell of a sentence in any year prior to 2017, but the story became even wilder when ‘90s rockstars R.E.M. successfully petitioned Twitter to remove the video. According to CNBC, the band took action because the clip, which mockingly mashed up Democrats’ reactions to Trump's to State of the Union, was soundtracked by their classic ballad "Everybody Hurts."

The band’s official Twitter account made their stance on all things Trump clear shortly the president posted the video, and bassist Mike Mills followed up with a tweet imploring Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to remove the clip. As CNBC reports, R.E.M. followed up with a copyright infringement notice filed by their publisher, and shortly thereafter users found attempts to play the video in the presidential tweet greeted with a "Content not found" notice. The tweet was eventually deleted.

This is the latest in a long, long, string of musical dustups for the president. Musicians including Rihanna, Neil Young, Guns 'N' Roses, and Adele have requested that Trump stop using their songs at his rallies and events. It’s not even the president's first run-in with R.E.M.-the band sent a cease and desist to the Trump campaign back in 2015 after finding out their song "It’s the End of the World" was being used as pump-up music at his rallies. At the time, Mills tweeted a message from lead singer Michael Stipe. "Go fuck yourselves, the lot of you-you sad, attention grabbing, power-hungry little men," he wrote. "Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign."

Musicians aren't the only creatives who've said that they'd prefer Trump keep his distance. Late last year, the president took to posting MAGA-themed Game of Thrones memes to his social media accounts. One such image featured a photo of Trump captioned with the phrase "The Wall is Coming," which seemed to suggest the president was operating under a profound misunderstanding of the HBO series.

HBO issued a cheeky tweet on the topic of Trump’s memes, but unlike R.E.M. seem to have pursued no legal action. Still, the company told The Hollywood Reporter that it "would prefer our trademark not be misappropriated for political purposes."

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