MGMT to Sue French President

A hilarious bit of MGMT news – France’s conservative UMP party, led by President Nicolas Sarkozy, illegally used “Kids” in two online videos and at campaign events. And MGMT is suing their asses for compensation. From NME:

Sarkozy has admitted using the song at the UMP party’s national congress, but claims the lack of permission was a mistake and offered the band one euro as a gesture, reports BBC News.

The duo rejected the offer and are now seeking compensation. Their lawyer, Isabelle Wekstein, said, “This offer is disrespectful of the rights of artists and authors. It is insulting. We are dealing with acts of counterfeiting, an infringement of intellectual property.”

A fee of 53 Euros (£47) had initially been paid to gain use of the song, but Wekstein said that the sum was not enough to cover repeated plays of the song in the online videos.

According to Prefix, ideological opposition to the conservative organization is also a motivating factor. This is additionally funny because the UMP is strongly in favor of copyright laws, and is currently pushing a law calling for tougher penalties for infractions.

If anyone can find these campaign videos online, we will post them. In the meantime here is a video of MGMT on French television, apparently explaining the meaning of Thanksgiving:

Prefix Mag: French Political Party Steals “Kids”
BBC: MGMT to sue Sarkozy for Music Use
NME: MGMT Suing Nicolas Sarkozy Over ‘Kids’
Pitchfork: MGMT Grapple with the President of France

[Thanks to Sayre Sundberg '11 for sending this in like, a week ago]
This entry was written by Sheek, posted on March 1, 2009 at 6:35 PM, filed under Music and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

12 Comments

  1. Anonymous
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 7:16 PM | Permalink

    that is the best thing i have ever seen

  2. Anonymous
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 7:43 PM | Permalink

    hahaha sarkozy is so fucking stupid

  3. Anonymous
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 7:56 PM | Permalink

    sarkozy’s the man. fuck mgmt

  4. Anonymous
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 8:08 PM | Permalink

    here’s one

    http://www.paperblog.fr/1621480/ump-mgmt-et-droits-d-auteurs-il-reste-une-video-en-ligne/

    scroll down

  5. Anonymous
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 8:12 PM | Permalink

    another:

    http://www.rue89.com/2009/02/19/les-rockeurs-de-mgmt-pas-ravis-detre-diffuses-par-lump

  6. Anonymous
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 10:38 PM | Permalink

    This won’t go anywhere, french presidents have immunity like whoa. Just ask chirac

  7. Peter
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 10:46 PM | Permalink

    lol @ people being all like “boo intellectual property rights” and “lol serves sarkozy right for fucking with MGMT” at the same time

  8. Anonymous
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 11:57 PM | Permalink

    This isn’t transparently a publicity stunt or anything.

  9. Anonymous
    Posted March 2, 2009 at 12:22 AM | Permalink

    I think it’s awesome that French political ads apparently have sign language interpreters in them.

  10. Anonymous
    Posted March 2, 2009 at 9:25 AM | Permalink

    Totally was going to say what Peter just did.

    Seriously, come on. If it was any other band…

  11. Anonymous
    Posted March 2, 2009 at 12:04 PM | Permalink

    here’s the performance plus the little interview that canal+ does after:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnbxydgNfgk

    the band claims MGMT stands for Make Good Music Today!

  12. Sam
    Posted March 2, 2009 at 1:05 PM | Permalink

    Peter: there’s quite a difference between listening to something on your own and using it for political gain.