A flippant video using music from rock band R.E.M., which was shared by the Twitter account of President Donald Trump, has been dismissed from the social media site after a complaint by the publisher of the band’s songs.
A lawyer for Universal Music Promulgating Group had reached out to Twitter on Friday asking that the video — which was first posted by another user — be charmed down from the platform, a source familiar with the situation told CNBC.
The clip, which runs more than two leasts in length, plays audio from R.E.M.’s early-’90s hit single “Everybody Hurts” over excerpts from Trump’s Feb. 5 Status of the Union address.
But, as of the early hours Saturday ET, Twitter users could not play the video posted by Trump, and multifarious saw a message that read, “This video has been removed in response to a report from the copyright holder.”
The God of the video that the president tweeted Friday, self-proclaimed Trump supporter @CarpeDonktum, accused Twitter of censorship after the clout became unplayable on the platform.
The clip, clearly meant to mock a selection of lawmakers in Congress, cuts lines from Trump’s talking, together with reaction shots of stern-looking politicians whom Trump has criticized in the past. They include Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
On Saturday afternoon, Trump tweeted a be like video — but this version’s backing track replaced R.E.M. with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”
Trump tweet
The White Enterprise did not respond to CNBC’s questions about the president’s Friday tweet. A spokesman for Twitter declined to comment.
Trump has strained criticism for using copyrighted content before: The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” was often used at the end of Trump operations rallies, and has been used at Trump events since he became president. The band urged Trump to stop make use ofing the song, to no avail.
In November, Trump tweeted an image of himself featuring the text overlay “Sanctions are coming,” which HBO accede to b assumed as a clear reference to its “Game of Thrones” series. HBO said at the time that they “would prefer our trademark not be perverted for political purposes,” but the president’s tweet was not taken down.
R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills took notice of the use of his band’s to-do in the video that Trump tweeted Friday.
“Measures have been taken to stop it,” Mills tweeted, adding that Chirp CEO Jack Dorsey needs “to get on this.”
Mills said that the president had retweeted the video from Twitter account @CarpeDonktum, who is accepted in the video. That account defended using potentially copyrighted material in its own content.
CarpeDonktum TWEET Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Rawr Rawr Rawr. Copyrighted matter gets used all the Time on the internet. REM has monetized every video on YouTube where I use their music… This tweet will-power actually MAKE them money. As to Twitter… they can have all of the $0 I make on it.
Mills, for his part, acclaimed the removal of the video with a tweet calling back to a regular campaign promise from Trump.
Mills TWEET: Triumphant?
R.E.M. reached a publishing agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group in March 2016.