Did American country folk singer Oliver Anthony file a cease-and-desist order against Tim Walz for using one of Anthony's songs? No, that's not true: This story first appeared on a Facebook page that says it is all about satire and parodies. Its website has a disclaimer that says "Nothing on this page is real" and a Google search brought up no results showing Anthony ever demanded Walz stop using his songs.
The claim about Anthony and Democratic vice presidential nominee Walz appeared in a post on Facebook on August 19, 2024. Above an image of Oliver Anthony, the caption read:
The Walz campaign says they can use whatever song they want. They're about to find out how wrong they are.
Text at the bottom of the image of Anthony reads:
Oliver Anthony Files Cease and Desist Against Tim Walz: 'Stop Using My Song'
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Aug 22 16:08:18 2024 UTC)
The account that posted this claim, America's Last Line of Defense, identifies itself on its About page as:
Satire/Parody · Entertainment website
The account's About page leads to Dunning-Kruger-Times.com (archived here), which identifies itself on its About Us page as part of "the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery" A "Busta Troll" copyright at the bottom of the website's home page states, "Nothing on this page is real."
The America's Last Line of Defense network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. He runs several websites and Facebook pages with visible satire disclaimers everywhere. Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake-news sites that omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake.
Using keywords, Lead Stories searched Google News for reports about Anthony demanding Walz stop using his music, but -- not surprisingly, given the disclaimer on America's Last Line of Defense -- found no credible documents or reporting to confirm its posted claim. The search results can be seen here.
In August 2023, Anthony publicly commented about a political party using his music, but, as NPR (archived here) reported, that was the Republican Party during its first presidential primary debate on August 23, 2023. In a video posted on his official YouTube channel two days later, Anthony commented (beginning at 2:22) that "it's aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I'm one of them."
Lead Stories could find no proof via a Google search that Walz has ever played Anthony's songs during his campaign with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
When this fact check was written, Snopes had also reviewed the same claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Oliver Anthony can be read here.
