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Donald Trump isn’t holding back his feelings about Taylor Swift.
On Sunday (Sept. 15), the former president lashed out against the pop superstar on social media, just days after she officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” Trump wrote in all caps on Truth Social.
Following last week’s first presidential debate between Trump and Harris on ABC News, Swift shared her endorsement for the VP with her 238 million Instagram followers (her account had reached 284 million as of Sept. 15).
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift wrote alongside a photo with her cat Benjamin Button. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
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The “Anti-Hero” singer also expressed her admiration for Harris, calling the VP a “steady-handed, gifted leader” and a “warrior” for causes she holds dear, such as LGBTQ+ rights and women’s reproductive freedoms.
Swift’s endorsement of the Democratic candidates also called out Trump posting fake AI images that had falsely suggested she supported the MAGA leader.
“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift said about the doctored images Trump put up on his Truth Social feed. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
The pop star signed her Instagram post as “Childless Cat Lady,” a zinger aimed at Trump’s VP candidate JD Vance, who once used that description to demean Democratic leaders without children.
Swift’s endorsement brought around 400,000 people to the Vote.gov registration website in the following days.
This isn’t the first time the singer-songwriter has spoken up for Democratic candidates. In 2018, she famously broke her silence around politics to endorse Phil Bredesen in his race against Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, saying Blackburn’s voting record “appals and terrifies me.” Swift also endorsed President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Who is “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”? Tim Walz gave that title to Donald Trump — making a play on words straight from Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department — in a speech on Saturday (Sept. 14) ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“Here’s my life hack for all the guys out there,” the Minnesota governor, Kamala Harris’ VP pick on the Democratic ticket, said an event in Superior, Wisconsin. He’d just voiced his respect for the intelligent women surrounding him, including wife Gwen Walz, who’s an English teacher. “Surround yourself with smart women and listen to them, and you’ll do just fine. That includes my fellow cat owner Taylor Swift, too, by the way.”“It’s really great to have all of these women help us beat the smallest man in the world: Donald Trump,” Walz said to cheers, in an apparent nod to Swift’s Tortured Poets track called “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”
The Harris-Walz campaign pivoted from a brat summer to a Swift era when the pop star endorsed the pair after Harris and Trump’s Sept. 10 debate. In Swift’s endorsement of the Democratic candidates, she called out Trump posting fake AI images that had falsely suggested she supported the MAGA leader.
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“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift said about the doctored images Trump put up on his Truth Social feed. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” she stated.
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift wrote of Harris, adding, “I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Swift signed her post as “Childless Cat Lady,” a zinger aimed at Trump’s VP candidate JD Vance, who once used that description to demean Democratic leaders without children.
Swift’s endorsement — posted on her 238 million-follower Instagram feed — brought nearly 400,000 people to the Vote.gov registration website in the following days.
Harris used Swift’s “The Man” at a post-debate appearance, while Walz said he’s “incredibly grateful” to Swift for her public support. “I say that as a fellow cat owner,” he commented in an interview with MSNBC. “That was eloquent and that was clear and that’s the type of courage we need in America to stand up.”
Harris and Walz swiftly made friendship bracelets spelling “Harris-Walz” available on their campaign’s online store, with proceeds going to the Harris Victory Fund. Ads from the Democratic National Committee, unveiled on billboards in New York, soon read “We’re In Our Kamala Era!” and “A New Way Forward… Ready For It?”
Regarding “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”: Swift doesn’t identify her actual muses, though the lyrics of the track, and others on the Billboard 200 15-week chart-topper The Tortured Poets Department, offer some hints to those familiar with her public relationships.
“Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?” Swift wonders of an ex-lover that ruined a “sparkling summer” by leaving her. “Did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed? Were you writing a book? Were you a sleeper cell spy? In 50 years, will all this be declassified?”
“And you’ll confess why you did it,” she continues in the song’s raw bridge. “And I’ll say ‘good riddance’ ’cause it wasn’t sexy once it wasn’t forbidden. I would’ve died for your sins; instead, I just died inside. And you deserve prison, but you won’t get time.”
Check out Walz’s latest mention of Swift, and his comment about Trump being “the smallest man,” followed by a video of his full speech from Saturday’s rally in Wisconsin below.
Tim Walz: Here’s my life hack for all the guys out there: surround yourself with smart women and listen to them and you’ll do just fine. That includes my fellow cat owner Taylor Swift.It’s really great to have all of these women help us beat the smallest man in the world..… pic.twitter.com/mA9JN2yYG2— Acyn (@Acyn) September 14, 2024
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Donald Trump is heavy on the campaign trail after some observers believed his showing in the first presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was less stellar than expected. However, a new issue is cropping up in the form of far-Right media figure Laura Loomer, a constant fixture by the former president’s side, so much so that some on Xitter believe the two are having a fling.
Donald Trump, 78, and Laura Loomer, 31, have been seen in several recent photos with one another, with Loomer shown exiting the former mogul’s airplane on a recent campaign stop. Some within the Republican Party, including those who have loudly supported Trump in the past, want him to distance himself from the controversial Loomer for various reasons.
Loomer and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene clashed online after Loomer made an offensive joke about Vice President Harris connected to her Indian and Jamaican heritage. Rep. Greene called out the social media attack, prompting Loomer to unload a barrage of insults in response.
Greene isn’t the only Trump stooge to call for him to reconsider aligning himself with Loomer. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Republican Party North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis have both had things to say about Loomer’s stances. This has only inflamed Loomer to fire back with insults at anyone she deems to be unloyal to Trump.
While he claims he has no control of Loomer’s words, Trump referred to her as a “free spirit” and says he’s unable to control her outbursts but there is a lingering thought on social media he doesn’t want to.
The aforementioned images of the pair have raised eyebrows and called into question if Trump, who has cheated on former First Lady Melania Trump before, is doing so again with Loomer. For the record, Loomer has denied all claims connected to the rumor.
On X, formerly Twitter, Donald Trump and Laura Loomer are at the center of discussion regarding their curious connection. We’ve got those replies below.
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Photo: David Dee Delgado / Getty
Nicky Jam is officially endorsing Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
On Friday (Sept. 13), the former president held a campaign rally at the World Market Center in downtown Las Vegas, where the 43-year-old reggaetón veteran took the stage to show his support for Trump as he faces off against Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election.
In an embarrassing faux pas, however, the ex-POTUS mistakenly referred to Nicky as a “she” when introducing him to the crowd for his endorsement speech.
“Do you know Nicky? She’s hot. Where’s Nicky?” Trump said from the stage while looking off to the side for the “X” singer. A few moments later, the former president spotted the Latin star and quickly realized his mistake. “Oh, look, I’m glad he came up,” Trump said as he patted the musician’s shoulder.
Nicky, wearing a black sweatshirt and the Trump campaign’s signature red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, then took the stage to deliver a brief statement.
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“It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. President. People that come from where I come from, they don’t meet the president. So I’m lucky,” said Nicky, who moved from Massachusetts to Puerto Rico at a young age. “We need you. We need you back, right? We need you to be the president.”
Nicky Jam is one of many music stars who have endorsed the 78-year-old businessman-turned-politician in his 2024 re-election bid. In late August, Puerto Rican reggaetón stars Anuel AA and Justin Quiles took the stage to support Trump at a rally in Johnstown, Penn. Other artists who support the former president include Jason Aldean, Kid Rock, Kodak Black, Lil Pump, Sexyy Red and Billy Ray Cyrus.
Nicky, who announced last October that he’ll be “retiring soon,” recently opened up about the decision in an interview with Billboard.
“I’m not going to be a singer for the rest of my life,” he said over Zoom from his Miami home. “I think I’ll probably retire soon… Well, not retire. Singers never retire. You just tone it down.”
Nicky dropped his sixth studio album, Insomnio, on Sept. 6.
John Legend has long been open about his political views, as well as his opposition to Donald Trump. But after the presidential debate on Sept. 10 — during which the Republican candidate regurgitated rumors that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio — it got personal for the EGOT winner.
In a video posted to his Instagram account Thursday (Sept. 12), two days after Trump’s first debate with Kamala Harris, Legend — who is from Springfield — shared his thoughts on the easily debunked claims about his hometown’s immigrant community. “Springfield has had a large influx of Haitian immigrants who’ve come to our city,” he explained. “Now, our city had been shrinking for decades. We didn’t have enough jobs, we didn’t have enough opportunities.”
“Of late, during the Biden administration, there’ve been more jobs that opened up — more manufacturing jobs, more plants, factories — that needed employees and were ready to hire people,” the “All of Me” singer continued. “During the same time, there had been upheaval and turmoil in Haiti. Our demand in Springfield for additional labor met up with the supply of additional Haitian immigrants.”
After outlining how the federal government assisted the Haitian population in legally moving to the United States, Legend compared the situation to other international communities — Polish, Irish, Italian, German, Jewish and Jamaican, to name a few — who’ve also immigrated over the years in pursuit of the American dream. “All of us need to have the same kind of grace that we would want for our ancestors,” he said into the camera.
“Nobody’s eating cats,” he added. “Nobody’s eating dogs. We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy, safe environment. Don’t spread hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them.”
The post comes as Springfield finds itself thrust into the center of the 2024 presidential race thanks to the false pet-eating rumor, which started with a post in a local Facebook group that alleged a neighbor’s daughter’s friend had found their missing cat hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home. With anti-immigration sentiment being a core tenet of Trump’s platform, his campaign was quick to use the rumors as fuel for his third White House bid, as conservative outlets spread the false story online.
“There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” a spokesperson for Springfield recently told CNN, while Mayor Rob Rue said Thursday that the hoax is “hurting our citizens and hurting our community.”
The Springfield controversy is just the latest topic Legend has spoken about amid the 2024 presidential race, with the musician being one of the earliest and most outspoken supporters of President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris’ campaigns this year. In a recent interview with BBC Newsnight, for instance, he opened up about the importance of reproductive healthcare — another hot-button issue in this year’s race — and detailed how it played a crucial role in his family in 2020.
“We were losing a pregnancy we wanted, a baby we wanted — we were losing him,” Legend recalled of Chrissy Teigen’s pregnancy loss four years prior. “We had to have abortion care to resolve that, to make sure that Chrissy didn’t die. She was bleeding profusely, and her life needed to be saved. We had to have abortion care to do that.”
Watch Legend call for peace in Springfield, Ohio, and share his thoughts on healthcare for women below.
“We had to have abortion care… to make sure that Chrissy didn’t die”Musician John Legend on the personal tragedy that informs his family’s battle for reproductive rights in America #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/n7avHTcYVi— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) September 12, 2024
Donald Trump doesn’t have Taylor Swift‘s support in the 2024 election, but that isn’t stopping him from using her brand to boost his campaign.
On Thursday (Sept. 12) — two days after the 34-year-old pop star emphatically backed Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential race — the Republican candidate’s team announced that it was selling “Trump Era” T-shirts inspired by the tiled graphic design on much of Swift’s Eras Tour apparel. Featuring a grid of photos of the twice-impeached president, each tinted with almost the exact same colors arranged in the very same pattern as the “Karma” singer’s design, the politician’s new clothing item is selling for $36.
“Calling all Swifties for Trump,” reads a tweet from the former president’s headquarters. “Get your Trump Era shirt today.”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment.
Though the pop star hasn’t reacted to the former president’s new merch, Swifties have. “This is a disgrace of a shirt. I hope she strips Donald of everything he has for infringement. @taylorswift13 @taylornation13 GET HIM!” one person tweeted in response to the campaign’s post about the shirt.
“im excited for trumps new era, i heard it’s called the ‘lawsuit era,’” another responded.
“This deserves a cease and desist!” yet another Swiftie tweeted, tagging the pop superstar, official fan page as well as her publicist.
Trump isn’t the only party in the 2024 election capitalizing on Swift’s popularity, with the Harris-Walz camp also recently unveiling Eras-inspired friendship bracelets on the Democratic ticket’s website. One key difference, however, is that the VP’s campaign actually has the support of the 14-time Grammy winner, who broke her silence on the election Sept. 10 with an Instagram post praising Harris for being a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
Swift also cited Trump’s past use of AI-generated images falsely portraying her as a MAGA supporter — another way he’s tried to exploit her image this election — as one of the reasons she felt it important to speak out. In response to the pop superstar’s endorsement of his opponent, the ex-POTUS said, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan, it was just a question of time.”
He added at the time: “But she’s a very liberal person, she seems to always endorse a Democrat and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”
See Trump’s new merchandise inspired by Swift’s Eras Tour below.
The Kamala Harris campaign has pivoted from its Brat Summer to a new Era. On Friday (Sept. 13) the Democratic National Committee unveiled a new digital billboard campaign in New York and Las Vegas that leans into Taylor Swift‘s endorsement of the presidential bid by the sitting Vice President and her VP pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
The ads read “We’re In Our Kamala Era!” in reference to Swift’s billion-dollar Eras Tour, as well as “A New Way Forward… Ready For It?,” which is a play on the song of the same name from the singer’s 2017 Reputation album. According to People, the Manhattan billboard is located 22 stories above the iconic red steps in Times Square — a seemingly Swift-esque Easter egg reference to Swift’s songs “22” and “Red” from 2012’s Red album.
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Meanwhile the ads on the Las Vegas strip feature a photo of Harris, 59, with the Eras reference, as well as another of Trump, 78, that asks, “Exhausted with this guy?” While Trump is famous for putting his name on a number of buildings in New York, the choice of Sin City for the latter ad coincided with the twice-impeached former President’s planned rally in Vegas on Friday.
Following Harris’ strong performance at Tuesday’s debate with convicted felon Trump — during which the former reality TV star amplified a false and racist meme claiming that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating dogs and cats — Swift endorsed the Democratic ticket in an impassioned post in which she struck out at fake AI images that appeared to show her endorsing Trump.
“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift said about the clearly doctored images that Trump re-posted on his Truth social feed. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election.”
The post in which Swift posed with one of her cats, was signed “Childless Cat Lady,” a dig at Trump VP candidate Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s 2021 demeaning description of Democratic leaders, including stepmother of two Harris, as “childless cat ladies… who want to make the rest of the country miserable.”
Swift’s endorsement on her Instagram feed with 238 million followers and plea for fans to register to vote led to nearly 400,000 people visiting the Vote.gov registration site in the days after Tuesday’s debate.
Trump denied the singer’s possible influence on the neck-and-neck race in an hours-long phone call with Fox & Friends on Wednesday in which he said, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan,” saying he prefers the singer’s friend, Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, who is teammates with Taylor’s boyfriend, KC tight end Travis Kelce. “She’s a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat, and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.
The ads are in keeping with the Harris/Walz campaign’s pinpoint needling of Trump with a barrage of memes and videos on X, as well as their perfectly-timed roll-out of friendship bracelets in their online store reading “Harris-Walz”; the $20-for-two accessories sold out almost immediately. Harris immediately leaned into the Swift endorsement during her post-debate party, where she walked off the stage to Swift’s misogyny-bashing Lover single “The Man.”
Check out the billboards below.
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While former President Donald Trump’s amplification of false claims during Tuesday’s presidential debate that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH are “eating dogs… eating the cats” have been widely debunked and endlessly mocked on social media, Wyclef Jean says it’s not funny and we need to keep our eyes on what’s important in November’s election.
The rapper/producer who was born in Haiti and emigrated to Brooklyn as a child told TMZ on Thursday (Sept. 12) that America’s historic embrace of immigrants is the nation’s “greatest asset.” Though he avoiding the repetition of the rumor spread by Trump and his VP pick, Ohio native JD Vance — which the state’s Republican Governor has said is without merit — ‘Clef stressed that we should all be taking this fall’s vote seriously.
“I will be forever grateful for my family’s life, for having a fair chance to live what is called the ‘American Dream,’” said Wyclef, who posted the TMZ chat on his X feed. “One of our greatest assets in America is that we are a country of immigrants. I speak from the heart when I say, Haitian people living in the U.S. are good neighbors and good people. We care about humanity. We care about our neighbors.”
Trump made the fallacious claim during his first, and seemingly, only debate with Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris this week in a moment that instantly became fodder for ridicule and contempt on late night shows and social media. Wyclef, who has long been a proud supporter of his native country, urged his fellow Americans to stop spreading the dangerous rumors.
“On behalf of Haitian Americans, I ask that we stop these racist messages and accusations. Put our hands out in peace and say thanks for being my neighbor,” Wyclef said. “We need to respect one another and vote based on policies and facts, not crazy talk. And we need to shake hands with one another and be thankful we are part of an America for all.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine dismissed Trump’s claims in a CBS interview on Wednesday, brushing aside the fake news that first popped up on right-wing social media feeds before being amplified by Vance and other Republicans. “This is something that came up on the internet and the internet can be quite crazy sometimes,” DeWine said, noting that the city’s mayor has confirmed that there is no credible evidence to support the cat- and dog-eating claims.
The rumors appear to have started following an incident in nearby Canton, OH in which a woman was arrested for killing and eating a cat, then further boosted by a photo of a person holding a dead goose that some on social media claimed was of a Haitian resident of Springfield. The video taken in Canton depicts a woman who is not Haitian being arrested for cruelty to companion animals; after being charged with the fifth-degree felony the woman plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The images were picked up and widely distributed by white supremacists, as well as X boss Elon Music and Vance, who has a home 45 minutes away from Springfield in neighboring Cincinnati, OH.
“I think we go with what the mayor says. He knows the city,” DeWine said of the town that has seen a major influx of 12,000-15,000 Haitian immigrants over the past few years that has strained city services, but who the Governor said have filled jobs in the city and work “very, very hard.”
While DeWine did not go so far as to say that the amplification of the rumor that started on a Springfield Facebook group were endangering the city’s Haitian population, U.S. National Security spokesperson John Kirby did deem Vance and Trump’s comments “dangerous.” The racist trope claiming immigrants cook and serve household pets has been used to demean and ostracize migrants for more than a century. In the midst of his third run for the White House, convicted felon Trump, 78 has continued to double-down on the debunked animal-eating claim in appearances this week.
In comments on Tuesday, Kirby said, “What’s deeply concerning to us is you’ve got now elected officials in the Republican Party pushing, you know, yet another conspiracy theory that’s just seeking to divide people based on lies and, let’s be honest, based on an element of racism. This kind of language, this kind of disinformation, is dangerous because there will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is, and they might act on that kind of information and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt. So it needs to stop.”
Singer, activist and Springfield native John Legend also weighed in on the danger of spreading such hurtful lies in a video posted on his Instagram in which he touched on the rush of Haitian immigrants who’ve moved to his hometown to escape the political turmoil in their native country.
“I think all of us need to have the same kind of grace that we would want our ancestors to have when they moved here with our Haitian brothers and sisters who moved here too,” Legend said in a video posted on Thursday. “And nobody’s eating cats. Nobody’s eating dogs. We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy and safe environment. How about we love one another?”
Legend noted that he grew up in the Christian tradition that encourages everyone to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves and treat strangers as though they might be Christ. So how about we adopt that ethos when we talk about immigrants moving to our communities and don’t spread hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them?”
According to the Huffington Post, Springfield City Hall and other downtown buildings received bomb threats prompting an evacuation on Thursday, with Mayor Rob Rue saying that the threat featured “hateful language” aimed at Haitians and immigrants. In addition, the president of the city’s nonprofit Haitian Community Help and Support Center told NBC News that the recent hateful attention on the city’s Haitian population has them “scared for their lives,” with some residents keeping their children home from school out of fear.
Watch Legend’s video below.
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Taylor Swift is not letting her fans get finessed by artificial intelligence. She has formally endorsed Kamala Harris for President of the United States
As reported by The Verge the music superstar is standing on democratic business. After the conclusion of the presidential debate on Tuesday, September 10, the Tortured Poets Department singer took to Instagram and made it clear that she is casting her vote for Kamala Harris. “Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” her caption read. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
She went on add that “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.” The rest of the post encourages her followers and fans to do their own research on both candidates and reminded everyone to register. Additionally she featured a link that shared more information on where to register by state in her Instagram Story. The post is a reference to some AI generated images Donald Trump shared back in August that depicted Taylor Swift fans wearing “Swifties For Trump” shirts and an image of the songstress wearing an Uncle Sam outfit with the caption “Taylor Wants YOU To VOTE For Donald Trump.”
As expected the announcement has many republicans in their feelings. JD Vance responded saying “I don’t think many people are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.” One X user wrote “Who the heck is Taylor Swift? Just another pretty face and half clad body that no one will care about in 10 years when she’s filled with botox and plastic. Just ask Madonna.”
You can find more information on how to register to vote here. Check out the reactions to Taylor Swift’s co-sign in the gallery.
The House Judiciary Committee has sent a letter to the Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, requesting an examination of “concerns” and “emerging issues” related to performing rights organizations (PROs).
In the letter, signed by the committee’s chairmen Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Darrell Issa as well as member Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, two particular areas of concern are addressed: the “proliferation” of new PROs and the lack of transparency about the distribution of general licensing revenue.
The letter, obtained by Billboard, notes the latter issue is of particular importance to independent artists and smaller publishers. “It is difficult to assess how efficiently PROs are distributing general licensing revenue based on publicly available data,” the letter reads. “For example, it is difficult to determine how accurately lesser known and independent artists as well as smaller publishers are being compensated compared to widely popular artists and major publishers.”
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Concerns around transparency at the PROs are not new. The National Music Publishers’ Association, the trade organization representing music publishers, has spoken publicly about it, as have a number of individual songwriters and publishers over the years. These concerns grew last year after BMI, one of the largest PROs in the country, switched its business model from non-profit to for-profit and was acquired by private equity firm New Mountain Capital.
At the end of BMI’s fiscal year 2022, Billboard reported that “for the first time ever, it hardly contains any financial information.”
“I believe that you have a fundamental right to know what it costs you to use a particular collection society now I will tell you that ASCAP gives you a pretty close look at what it costs not exactly, but they give you a pretty close ballpark,” said NMPA CEO and president David Israelite at an Association of Independent Music Publishers’ Meeting in February. “BMI at the end of the last fiscal year we didn’t get that information.”
The letter states that it “request[s] that the Office examine how the various PROs currently gather information from live music venues, music services, and other general licensees about public performance; the level of information currently provided by PROs to the public; whether any gaps or discrepancies occur in royalty distribution; what technological and business practices exist or could be developed to improve the current system; the extent to which the current distribution practices are the result of existing legal and regulatory constraints; and potential recommendations for policymakers.”
The “proliferation” of PROs is a newer concern. Around the world, most countries typically have one PRO for local writers and publishers to join. In the U.S., it works differently. For over a hundred years, ASCAP and BMI have been the primary choices for a songwriter or publisher looking to collect performance royalties in the United States, but there is also the option to go with SESAC instead, a smaller but still important player in the U.S. PRO landscape, which has been around for almost as long.
Since its founding in 2013, Global Music Rights (GMR), a for-profit PRO founded by industry veteran Irving Azoff, has become a heavyweight in the space as well. GMR business model is to focus on a smaller roster of only the top tier of songwriters and then charging a premium to the bars, venues, shops and theaters that wanted to play them. Because their roster includes major artists including Bruce Springsteen, Billie Eilish, Drake, and more, the GMR blanket license became immediately important for licensees to have, no matter the cost.
In 2017, a fifth U.S.-based PRO emerged. AllTrack was founded by media investor and former SESAC-board member Hayden Bower and is designed to focus on indie creators with a tech-forward approach. This year, AllTrack became the fourth U.S. PRO to be accepted by the International Confederation of Socities of Authors and Composers (CISAC), along with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.
“Licensees [like bars, restaurants and small businesses] have reported receiving demands for royalties from new entities claiming to represent songwriters… Licensees are concerned that the proliferation of PROs represents an ever-present danger of infringement allegations and potential litigation risk from new and unknown sources,” the letter states.
“We request that the USCO examine the increased costs and burdens imposed on licensees for paying an ever-increasing number of PROs, factors that may be contributing to the proliferation of new PROs, and recommendations on how to improve clarity and certainty for licensees,” it continues.
Perlmutter and the Copyright Office cannot make any specific changes to the way PROs work today, but often letters like this are sent in hopes that it will draw attention to particular issues or become the predicate for a hearing or draft bill.