Morrissey States He Was Not Behind Attempted Takedown Of ‘This Charming Charlie’ Comic

October 8th, 2013

Kriston McConnell

It was recently brought to light that Universal Music Publishing was seeking to take down the Tumblr blog known as This Charming Charlie. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a blog that features Peanuts’ comic strips with the dialogue replaced with lyrics by The Smiths. Sounds awesome, right? Well, they (Universal Music Publishing) are claiming copyright privileges over the lyrics that are being used.

I’m sure all of you already know, Morrissey was once in the band. He wanted to make it clear to fans that he was not behind the attempted takedown, and the following was posted on his zine, True To You:

Morrissey would like to stress that he has not been consulted over any takedown request to remove the Tumblr blog named ‘This Charming Charlie’.
Morrissey is represented by Warner-Chappell Publishing, and not Universal Music Publishing, (who have allegedly demanded that the lyrics be removed).
Morrissey is delighted and flattered by the Peanuts comic strip with its use of Morrissey-Smiths lyrics, and he hopes that the strips remain.

Luckily, in the last few days the blog has stopped deleting posts, and it seems as though Universal Music Publishing is no longer going after This Charming Charlie. Yay!