Cruz sued over songs his campaign stole

Back in our nation's halcyon days when Ted Cruz was still running for president, he often seemed irritated. In a widely mocked campaign email, he describedthe sacrifices he had to make to run for president. He complained about the incessant political attacks, the lack of sleep and family contact, and the limits campaigning placed on his personal time to breathe American air and contemplate the world as a free Ted.

But just because you've come to the end of the presidential road, doesn't mean the hassle stops. Especially if your campaign ads violated copyright laws, and got sleuthed out by the owner's tech.

According to the Seattle Times, Cruz's campaign and his ad agency Madison McQueen are being sued by music licensing and tech company Audiosocket, which alleges"that the Cruz campaign used two of the firm's songs in two separate political ads despite signing contracts specifically stating the music could not be used in political advertisements or television broadcasts." The artists of the songs are plaintiffs as well. The complaint says the ads were played over 90,000times on Facebook, and one of them aired on Fox Business Network more than 86 times.

"We've never had to litigate a case before," says Audiosocket CEO Brent McCrossen, "but the facts of the case were so egregious." Usually Audiosocket avoids litigation by contacting an infringer and convincing them to take down the song without getting the courts involved. In this case, the company faced multiple instances of infringement from the same party that they felt were so outrageous they had to take action.

Audiosocket provides a shop for soundtrack-hungry content creators to sift through a library of pre-licensed songs, sort of like Getty Photos for music. McCrossen has a connected company called LIDCORE, that sells a technology called License ID, which can mark every music file licensed on Audiosocket with an inaudible encoding. "Then we crawl the web and we find those marked files," he says "and we can essentially...find out if it's used compliantly or outside of the rights granted or without a license at all." He says it uncovers "dozens and dozens" of infringement cases every day.

The lawsuit says Cruz's ad agency Madison McQueen bought the songs under small business licenses, which prohibits political use. The suit alleges a McQueen employee even asked for permission for expanded rights to use one of the songs, "Lens" on cable television. Audiosocket contacted the artist to see if she consented to her song's use on television, in a Ted Cruz ad, and she said no. The ad featuring her song "Victories" was then broadcast more than 86 times. Using License ID, Audiosocket found that the other song "Fear of Complacency" was used in a Cruz ad online before it had even been licensed.

Neither the Ted Cruz campaign nor the ad agency returned calls for comment from Vocativ.

While first allegedly infringing ad "Victories" has been taken down, the second, "Best to Come," remains online with its gruff narration, upbeat message, and allegedly ill-used soundtrack of mild orchestral post rock glory.

Audiosocket is seeking $25,000 for each alleged breach of contract. Ted Cruz is currently seeking a way to use his delegates to alter the Republican convention platform.

The post Cruz Sued Over Songs His Campaign Stole appeared first on Vocativ.

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