An intellectual property law expert has contradicted NZ First leader Winston Peters’ claims that there is “nothing wrong” with his party using a hit UK punk song at events because it is not for commercial gain.

Earlier today The Spinoff reported the band asked their record company Sony to issue a cease and desist notice requiring Peters to stop using the Chumbawamba song Tubthumping “to try to shore up his misguided political views”.

However, Sangro Chambers lawyer Earl Gray told the Herald copyright and copyright infringement doesn’t depend on commercial purposes.

“Political parties tend to think they can get away with this around the world and then people stop them. And then another political party, or they, wake up the next day, and they seem to do it again.”

Gray’s comments come after Peters defended his use of Tubthumping to Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan by claiming the party weren’t using it to benefit financially.

He then claimed the “leftist shills” at The Spinoff, which first reported the story, didn’t know what “the law” was.

“Well, we got knocked down, we get back up again,” he told the radio host.

In a further statement, Peters said New Zealand First has not received any cease-and-desist phone call, email, letter, “or anything of the sort from the former band nor any other representative – and we don’t expect to”.

Gray said Peters’ claims that the party could use the song did not seem to be correct “at all”.

“A while ago, there was the Eminem Esque song, 8 Mile Style, which the National Party used in advertisements and they would say that they weren’t making money from that either. It was a political party advertisement. But that was clearly copyright infringement and there were very substantial damages awarded in that.”

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Many similar cases had arisen in the US, he said, particularly with former President Donald Trump, who has used songs raising the ire of the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young to name a few.

Gray believed politicians appeared to believe copyright law didn’t apply to them.

“It’s a little rich to say, ‘I’m okay’ without getting proper advice about it.”

Peters could use the song, Gray said, if the venue had a licence to play it but he explained most licences exclude political use.

Chumbawamba, a band with anarcho-communist political leanings that broke up in 2012, previously expressed outrage after a party conference appearance by then Ukip leader Nigel Farage was accompanied by the same tune.

The song saga comes after Peters compared political comments to “race-based theories” seen in Nazi Germany over the weekend.

Alexia Sharp, 4, from Whanganui gives New Zealand First leader Winston Peters a high-five after his State of the Nation speech in Palmerston North on Sunday. Photo / Mark Mitchell

His comments, made in his State of the Nation speech in Palmerston North, drew warnings from the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand about the use of such terminology by politicians.

“It is actually offensive to the memory of those who died and to those who survived in the Holocaust to start throwing around terms like ‘holocaust’ or ‘Nazi’ willy-nilly,” Holocaust Centre spokesman Ben Kepes told NZME.

“Generally speaking, as we’ve seen society grow increasingly numb to inflammatory comments, people have to get more and more inflammatory in order to get an effect and so I think what we saw today was simply an example of the sort of breakdown of society.”

Asked by reporters what he thought New Zealand’s Jewish community would make of his comments, Peters said: “I think that they would understand entirely what I’m saying.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins responded by comparing Peters to a “drunk uncle at a wedding.

“Same old Winston Peters. Using racism and anti-media rhetoric to divide our country. He should be focusing on the real work of leading New Zealand forward, but that would require a plan and a vision. Sadly, this Government is lacking in both.”

Katie Harris is an Auckland-based journalist who covers social issues including sexual assault, workplace misconduct, crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2020.