Rush Limbaugh vs. Rush, Canadian rock band doesn’t want its music played by the radio host

They may share a name, but Canadian rock legend band Rush is not about to share its music with controversial U.S. radio host Rush Limbaugh.

As E! Online reports, the band has hit Limbaugh with a cease-and-desist letter after learning its tune called The Spirit of the Radio appeared during the broadcast of his now infamous diatribe against Georgetown student Sandra Fluke.

Band members were reportedly unhappy that the song provided part of the soundtrack for Limbaugh's tirade, during which he called the birth control advocate a "slut" and a "prostitute." The performers said they worried that the track's inclusion implied their endorsement of the radio host's political views.

"The public performance of Rush's music is not licensed for political purposes and any such use is in breach of public performance licenses and constitutes copyright infringement," the letter states. "In addition, the use of Rush's music in this manner implies an endorsement of the views expressed and products advertised on the show."

Rush joins fellow rockers Peter Gabriel and the Fabulous Thunderbirds in demanding that producers stop playing their music on Limbaugh's show. Wenn.com reports that Gabriel was "appalled" to learn his song Sledgehammer had also been used during the Fluke episode.

As Rolling Stone magazine notes, Thunderbirds singer Kim Wilson said while Limbaugh has used the band's song Tuff Enuff for years, the Fluke incident put him over the edge.

"I don't want people to think I'm affiliated in any way, shape or form with him," Wilson told the magazine. "The message he promotes is something I'm totally against."

However, attorney Larry Iser said the bands may not have a legal leg to stand up to this practice. The intellectual property litigator explained that radio networks like Limbaugh's have a blanket agreement for "public performance" of all songs in certain catalogues: as long as the song rights have been paid for, the networks are allowed to use it.

"What he did is in fact the essence of what 'public performance' is," Iser told the magazine. Radio networks "all take public performance licenses for the performing societies . . . Artists who make money from public performance royalties don't have the right, typically, to control who plays their songs. Once they choose to add their songs to the public performance catalogue, they're out there for anyone [with a licensing agreement] to use."

Where Rush, Gabriel and other musicians may win, continued Iser, is in the court of public opinion.