Melania used music from Phantom Thread without artists’ permission, Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood claim

Director Paul Thomas Anderson and composer Jonny Greenwood have demanded that their Phantom Thread music be removed from the documentary, Melania. Just as the conversation surrounding Melania began to die down, another comes another flicker of controversy. Director Paul Thomas Anderson and composer Jonny Greenwood said that the makers of Melania, the puff-piece documentary about ... Melania used music from Phantom Thread without artists’ permission, Paul Thomas Anderson and Jonny Greenwood claim

Director Paul Thomas Anderson and composer Jonny Greenwood have demanded that their Phantom Thread music be removed from the documentary, Melania.

Just as the conversation surrounding Melania began to die down, another comes another flicker of controversy.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson and composer Jonny Greenwood said that the makers of Melania, the puff-piece documentary about the wife of Donald Trump, have taken a piece of music from their film, Phantom Thread, and used it without permission.

The filmmaker and musician have released a statement demanding that the piece of music – Barbara Rose – be removed from the documentary.

“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary,” Anderson and Greenwood wrote in a joint statement shared by The Hollywood Reporter. “While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use, which is a breach of his composer agreement. As a result, Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”

As the statement points out, the makers of Melania – including its director, the disgraced filmmaker Brett Ratner – sought and secured a licence for the music, whose rights belong to Universal. Actually getting the song removed from the documentary would likely involve a lengthy legal battle.

Read more: Melania cost $40m. Here’s how that budget compares to other documentary films

Produced by Melania Trump herself, the documentary has had a reported $75m lavished on its making, licencing and release thanks to a lucrative deal with Amazon. At least some of that outlay went to music licencing, with the soundtrack including some expensive-to-acquire songs like Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean and The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter.

That $75m makes Melania one of the most expensive documentary features ever made, and despite the $25m spent on its promotion, it’s so far made $13.5m worldwide. The gambit was always going to lose money, but for a multi-billion dollar company like Amazon, it’s likely a small price to pay for ingratiating itself with the President of the United States.