What is the status of songs that glorify illegal activity in different countries?

Question

If I understand correctly, freedom of speech does not, in many countries, include speech that glorifies illegal activity.

What is the legal status in such countries of songs like Convoy, which do that? Convoy, for example, refers to speeding ("we crashed the gate doin' 98 [miles per hour, at a time when 55 MPH was the national speed limit]"; "Well, we rolled up Interstate 44 like a rocket sled on rails"; a rocket sled on rails goes faster than 55 MPH, and the simile doesn't make sense at normal speeds), evading police (evading police is basically the theme of the entire song; you can't really quote a short section that specifically mentions), failure to keep mandated records ("We tore up all of our swindle sheets, And left 'em settin' on the scales"), violation of radio regulations (use of CB radio to coordinate illegal activity is illegal, and is a separate offense from the main illegal act; also, a two-way conversation between Rubber Duck in New Jersey and Pig Pen in Nebraska would almost certainly require a linear unless skip conditions were perfect, which is unlikely considering that the song was published in 1975 in the solar minimum between cycles 20 and 21 ), and probably other crimes that I missed.

What about ones like Four Wheel Drive, where illegal activity is also glorified initially (evading police is the main thing here, too; "Well, the chase was on, but I had the edge with a rig that'll never fail; got a CJ-5 with a four wheel drive with Smokey on my tail"), but end with consequences for the illegal act ("Got a CJ-5 with a four-wheel drive sittin' out back of the jail")?

Are there any countries where my question would be illegal to write?

Answer 1

What is the status of songs that glorify illegal activity in different countries?

germany Depends on the crime and the lyrics. For historical reasons, glorifying genocide is banned. Calling for crimes to be committed against individuals is banned. More generic 'gangster rap' pretending to a criminal lifestyle is allowed. The exact dividing line between the two comes out in court precedents, which weigh the freedom of expression against the freedom from insults and criminal threats.

Are there any countries where my question would be illegal to write?

Sure. Consider North Korea, where those lyrics would be evidence of decadent Western speech patterns and get punished by two years to life (or more, if the police has a quota to fill).

Answer 2

uk

Drill music is become effectively criminalised as people are prosecuted for "inciting violence", and "conspiracy". The metropolitan police have a database of 1900 "illegal" drill videos, people have been sent down for decades for the songs and some have to get their lyrics approved by the police.

At the start of 2019, Skengo and AM became the first musicians in the UK of any type to be convicted for performing a live song, when they were sentenced to nine months and suspended for two years for breaching an interim gang injunction

Drill artist Digga D has check-ins with the police every three hours, subject to recall to prison without a stated reason, has to get his lyrics approved by the police, and even required to move away from his home in London and into a hostel in Norwich.

On 1 July 2022, four of [murdered 16-year-old aspiring rapper John Soyoye] friends, Harry Oni, Jeffrey Ojo, Gideon Kalumda and Brooklyn Jitobah were sentenced to 21 years’ imprisonment (20 for Jitobah), after they were found guilty of conspiracy to murder for planning revenge attacks for Soyoye’s death. Despite not having any weapons, taking part in any violence or efforts to locate attack targets, four of the six other defendants were seemingly condemned solely for comments they made in a group chat with the other defendants three days after Soyoye’s death.

The boys were defined — and therefore condemned — by the prosecution as being part of the M40 ‘gang’, although they denied this. The defendants told the court that M40 is not a gang, but a drill music collective in which some, but not all, of them rapped. The quoting of drill lyrics in their chat, showing their shared love of UK drill — one of the most popular genres in the country — was also seen to be incriminating.

Sentencing, Mr Justice Goose said: “It was played out in social media and through drill rap music, with threats of violence, the display of weapons, including firearms, machetes and crossbows.”

Answer 3

In the case of the united-states, merely glorifying illegal activity is not and cannot be illegal (without amending the Constitution, at least.) Even advocating for illegal acts is explicitly protected in Supreme Court First Amendment precedent in most cases. So, 'Convoy' would definitely be protected speech here.

In the 1969 Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that the government may not prohibit speech advocating lawless actions unless both elements of a two-part test are met (which came to be known as the Brandenburg Test.) Specifically, in order for the government to be allowed to make a law prohibiting speech advocating criminal activity, the speech must be:

• "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action"
  AND
• "likely to incite or produce such action"

The "imminent" part there should especially be noted. Advocating for a specific lawless action at a later indefinite time is specifically protected under this test (that is, it cannot be illegal.)

So, whether the speech is glorifying speeding or advocating violent crime, it cannot be illegal unless it is specifically directed towards inciting a specific person or group to do so imminently. Thus, unless you are composing and singing a song about driving 98 mph while sitting in a passenger seat of a vehicle that is actively driving down a road in a manner directed towards inciting the driver to actually do that right now and in which it is likely that the driver would actually do that, then neither composing nor performing said song is illegal in the U.S. Nor would one glorifying (and/or promoting) drug use, gang crime, hate crimes, or any other sort of crime be illegal.

(Also, no, it is not illegal to either sing or shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, contrary to common misconceptions stemming from dicta in a court case from 100 years ago that was overruled 50 years ago that had nothing to do with either fires or theaters, but rather with protesting against conscription.)

Answer 4

In spain, certain types of songs that promote illegal activity can be prosecuted. For instance, the rapper Valtònyc was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for songs that were alleged to contain threats to specific individuals, insults to the Crown (saying that he wanted to hang the king, for instance), and promotion of terrorism (among other things, Valtònyc claimed that the Basque separatist group "ETA is a great nation," which was a famous slip made by the ex-president Mariano Rajoy. Some other musicians have been prosecuted under similar laws.

By contrast, in the united-states, the laws surrounding freedom of expression are much more permissive, meaning that little short of a credible threat to a specific individual or the use of a song to coordinate actual criminal conspiracy would likely be illegal. For instance, the rapper Snoop Dogg released a music video in which he threatened "Trump" with a gun, and had an album showing him standing over a dead Trump, but did not face legal sanction. Both of your songs seem to be from the United States, so this might be the most relevant jurisdiction.