Is Remixing the National Anthem Illegal in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts has a statute about how the national anthem may be performed. M.G.L. c. 264, sec. 9 reaches the Star Spangled Banner played, sung or rendered as dance music, as an exit march, or as a part of a medley of any kind, and the fine is not more than $100. The section is titled “National anthem; manner of playing,” and manner is exactly what it regulates.

The section is built in two halves

The first half is about performing the anthem in a public place, theatre, motion picture hall, restaurant or cafe, or at any public entertainment, “other than as a whole and separate composition or number, without embellishment or addition in the way of national or other melodies.” The second half is the one the video is about: playing, singing or rendering the anthem, “or any part thereof,” as dance music, as an exit march or as a part of a medley of any kind.

What the first half is really asking

Read it closely and the first half is not a question of taste. It asks whether the anthem was performed as a whole and separate composition, standing on its own, without other melodies folded into it. A version that stitches the anthem into something else is the fact pattern those words describe. That is also why the statute lists an exit march and a medley by name in the second half: both are ways of using the anthem as a component of something larger rather than performing it as its own number.

The penalty is a fine

Not more than one hundred dollars, with no jail term attached. That is the figure the section carries on malegislature.gov, and it is the number the video quotes.

What this page is not

This page describes what section 9 says. It does not say how a court would apply the words to a particular performance, whether the venue list in the first half carries into the second, or how often the section is charged in Massachusetts. Those are questions about a real situation and about enforcement practice, and a page written for everyone cannot answer them honestly for anyone. Read the section yourself at the link above, and for a question about something that actually happened, telephone the firm.