Zohran Mamdani’s Bob Dylan-Themed Ad Removed From X After Publisher Denies Song Clearance

Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” scored New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s final advertisement before his election night victory — but the campaign spot has now been removed from X amid a licensing rejection from Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG).

The ad, posted by Mamdani’s various social media accounts just before polls closed on Tuesday (Nov. 4), featured the caption “New York is a-changin’” and a montage of scenes from the 34-year-old progressive’s campaign set to Dylan’s famous protest song. Mamdani was declared the winner of the race Tuesday night, beating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

But as first reported by the New York Times, the ad has since been taken down from X and replaced by a notice reading, “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.” The video is still available on Instagram and TikTok.

It was not immediately clear who requested that the video be taken down from the social media platform, but a source familiar with the situation tells Billboard that UMPG, which has owned Dylan’s publishing catalog since 2020, previously denied a request from Mamdani’s campaign to license the composition.

Reached for comment on the matter on Wednesday (Nov. 5), a spokesperson for UMPG said, “As a longstanding policy, we do not license Bob Dylan compositions for projects involving political figures.”

The Mamdani campaign did not immediately return a request for comment. A rep for Sony Music, which owns Dylan’s master recordings, declined to comment. Representatives from Instagram owner Meta and TikTok did not immediately respond to questions about whether the platforms also received takedown notices for the ad.

While individual social media users are free to soundtrack their videos with songs covered by blanket licenses, advertisements must get clearance from copyright owners via a so-called sync license.

Failure to get a sync license for a political video creates potential legal liability, as Billboard has recently reported in the wake of President Donald Trump’s administration posting TikTok videos featuring Taylor Swift’s No. 1 single “The Fate of Ophelia” and Zach Bryan’s track “Revival.”