Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ bid to run in the 2024 presidential election has encountered a stumbling block that we’ve seen arise quite often: copyright claims. Thanks to a recent ad using footage of Cillian Murphy from the Netflix series Peaky Blinders without permission, DeSantis has attracted attention from several key figures of the show’s creative team. That in turn has led to Murphy, Steven Knight, and other parties involved in the series to send out a message in response to these actions.
Taking to the official Twitter page for the show, a statement was provided as an official reaction to Ron DeSantis’ ad, which uses a couple of dialogue-free clips involving Cillian Murphy’s Thomas Shelby. You can read the statement in its entirety below:
pic.twitter.com/o33HL2zMesJuly 5, 2023
Perhaps the most potent sticking point, besides using Peaky Blinders clips without legal permission, is the fact that this ad has been perceived as homophobic. The ad in question, edited in a style that’s definitely reminiscent of fan cams seen throughout social media, also features clips from the 2000 film adaptation of American Psycho, as well as 2004’s Troy and 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street.
Intercut with headlines and other images of Ron DeSantis’ implied legacy of governance, it’s certainly not the first, nor the last time such a claim has been made against a political campaign. One of the most notable campaigns to have this sort of content usages flagged by the creators was the 2008 presidential ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin.
During that campaign's run Rolling Stone covered how Palin’s usage of Heart’s “Barracuda” at an event not only upset the band, but was also done without permission. Meanwhile, even when the late Senator McCain was cited as properly licensing music from the video game Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for some ads, Wired noted that composer Christopher Lennertz was “dismayed” to hear his music used.
Back to the subject of this hopeful for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, the continued timeline of Ron DeSantis’ legal challenges against Walt Disney World has also kept Florida’s governor keenly in the public eye. Not to mention, a seemingly pro-DeSantis protest involving Nazi flags outside of the Disney Parks’ campus has also been talked about far and wide in a current news cycle.
Just as no politician can totally control how their supported express themselves, people like Cillian Murphy and the Peaky Blinders team don’t have a total hold on how that dramatic legacy is used in the open. As we get closer to the actual 2024 primaries, you can bet that all sides of the political spectrum will be seeing creators voicing disapproval for their IP being used for political advertisements.
All any future creators can do is express their own views on how that content is used, while also making sure everything is above board in the process. In the meantime, if you're looking to enjoy Peaky Blinders in a totally approved and sanctioned method the creators would appreciate, you can currently watch the entire run with a Netflix subscription.
