Clive Palmer has been ordered to pay $1.5 million in damages after losing the years-long copyright case with hair metal band Twisted Sister.
The legal battle came to a conclusion today with Universal Music winning their lawsuit against the politician after he ripped off Twisted Sister’s classic ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’.
It all started in 2019 when Palmer used a rip-off of the song, with the ‘imaginative’ rewrite of ‘We’re not gonna cop it’ in place of the original hook, for a political ad.
Dee Snider, Twisted Sister’s frontman, claims Palmer knew about licensing fees associated with the song, but ignored them. He even went on Australian morning television to call Palmer out.
Palmer responded how one would expect him to respond – by calling for Twisted Sister’s 2019 Australian tour to be cancelled, and by challenging Snider to a sing-off.
Today Federal Court Justice Anna Katzmann ruled that Palmer was guilty of infringing the copyright of both the music and lyrics of the Twisted Sister track.
“Mr Palmer’s use of [the song] was opportunistic,” reads her judgment as reported by ABC News.
“He saw political and personal advantage in both its notoriety or popularity and the message it conveyed and he thought that he could get away with using it merely by altering some of the words.
“He was wrong.”
Along with having to cop $1.5 million in damages, Clive Palmer has also been ordered to pay legal costs and to remove all copies of his song and video from the internet.
Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider celebrated the win, in a tweet. “It’s over baby! WE WON BIG!!”
It's over baby! WE WON BIG!! https://t.co/5wSz7sMFBy
— Dee Snider??? (@deesnider) April 30, 2021
Now, once more for fun…
