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15 October 2019CopyrightSaman Javed

Twitter removes Trump campaign video after Queen complain

The music publisher of the rock band  Queen has instrumented the take down of a campaign video posted by US President Donald Trump, which it said infringed the group’s copyright.

As reported by  Buzzfeed News on Sunday, October 13, the video, which featured Trump speaking at rallies, used the entirety of the song “We Will Rock You” as its soundtrack.

According to the report, a representative for the band told BuzzFeed that Queen had not authorised the use of the song for the video, which was posted on  Twitter on October 9.

Additionally, the representative said the band had “already entered into a process to call for non-use of Queen song copyrights by the Trump campaign”.

The video was removed on Sunday, four days after it was originally posted, but not before being viewed more than 1.7 million times.

In space of the video, Trump’s  tweet now reads: “This media has been disabled in response to a report by copyright owner”.

This is not the first time Queen has taken issue with the Trump campaign. In 2016, Queen guitarist Brian May posted a statement on his personal website after Trump entered a Republican National Convention to “We are the Champions”.

“My personal reaction to Donald Trump using our music … We'd never give permission,” May wrote.

He added: “This is not an official Queen statement, but I can confirm that permission to use the track was neither sought nor given. We are taking advice on what steps we can take to ensure this use does not continue.”

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