JOE WALSH FOR CONGRESS?

Joe Walsh is running for Congress in Illinois, but it's not the Eagles guitarist. However, the candidate is using a re-recording of a Walsh song in his campaign, which is not sitting well with the guitarist.

Walsh the candidate has taken "Walk Away," a song the guitarist recorded with his pre-Eagles band, The James Gang, and redubbed it "Lead the Way." This led to the guitarist's lawyer firing off a cease-and-desist letter, which in part says, "You can't use someone else's song for your political campaign promotions unless you get permission from the owner of the copyright of the song. As far as we can tell, you didn't do that. Maybe you got so busy with the campaign that you just forgot. This is not to say you're not allowed to write silly lyrics, you just have to write them to your own music. Now, I know why you used Joe's music -- it's undoubtedly because it's a lot better than any music you or your staff could have written. But that's the point. Since Joe writes better songs than you do, the Copyright Act rewards him by letting him decide who gets to use the songs he writes."

In closing, the lawyer, Peter Paterno writes, "Given that your name is Joe Walsh, I'd think you'd want to be extra careful about using Joe's music in case the public might think that Joe is endorsing your campaign, or God forbid, is you. Or maybe you intended that. But you shouldn't have."