(Antonio Tarek Abdalá channels Pharrell’s Happy video for a campaign ad. Photograph: Screen grab)
Congressional Candidate Antonio Tarek Abdalá is getting ready for Mexico's June 7th votes. His recent attempt to win the country over has been by parading his newest campaign videos around on tv. The issue: his videos are using songs that he was never given permission to use by the artists. His actions have completely disregarded the copyright law. The videos show Abdalá dancing around to Pharrell Williams recent hit Happy, with minor changes to the songs chorus lines promoting him for candidacy.
Candidate Manuel Pozo uses Queen's We Will Rock You in his campaign video. He also changed lyrics around to fit his campaigning. Queen's manager responded to The Guardian stating that Pozo was given "no consent" to the song.
So how does Mexico feel about this? The Guardian says,
"Xavier Domínguez, the Catalan chairman of the political advertising agency Wish & Win, who has worked with Mexican candidates for years, said it is unlikely that any of the campaigns sought permission to use the hits. He dismissed the videos as “ridiculous” efforts to provide entertainment, rather than part of any clear strategy.
“Plagiarism is a tradition here, and nobody is ever sanctioned for it,” said Dominguez. “In a country where human rights are violated all the time, nobody is going to bother about copyright.”"
It seems as though Mexico has no hold on their laws. Where "human rights are violated all the time" said by Dominguez, one could question what these candidates stand for, when they too are violating human rights by disobeying the copyright law.