Bob Dylan song removed from Zohran Mamdani promotional video
Bob Dylan‘s publisher, Universal Music Publishing Group, have seemingly removed his song from a Zohran Mamdani advertisement.
On the day of Mamdani’s historic election win to become the mayor-elect for New York City, he shared a political advertisement on his social media profiles that featured Dylan’s classic track, ‘The Times They Are a-Changin.’
The Democratic Party politician captioned the video, “New York is a-changin'”, and it caused a huge reaction on social media, gaining more than 14 million views on X alone.
However, within a day, the video was unavailable to watch on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform. A message displayed in place of the video reads, “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”
It wasn’t Dylan himself who reported the video, but seemingly Universal Music Publishing Group, according to the New York Times.
In a statement, the publisher told the New York Times, “As a longstanding policy, we do not license Bob Dylan compositions for projects involving political figures.”
The New York Times report also alleges that Universal Music Publishing Group rejected an advance from Mamdani’s team to use the track as part of their promotional campaign.
In 2020, Dylan reached a lucrative deal with Universal Music Publishing Group to sell his entire back catalogue in an agreement reportedly worth more than $300 million. It is believed to have included the rights for 600 songs, including ‘The Times They Are a-Changin”.
Mamdani beat competition from independent Andrew Cuomo and the Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa to become the next New York mayor. He will become the youngest mayor in over 100 years when he takes office on January 1st, 2026.
Meanwhile, Dylan, who was recently honoured by the Berklee College of Music, will begin the latest UK and Ireland leg of his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour, which kicks off at the Brighton Centre on November 7th. He will visit Swansea, Coventry, Leeds, Glasgow, Belfast, Killarney, and Dublin.
The promotional video is still available to watch on Instagram.
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