Jon and Tracy Morter

Jon and Tracy Morter are an Essex, England couple who started an Internet campaign to get Rage Against the Machine song "Killing in the Name" to become the Christmas number one on the UK Singles Chart instead of 's release as a protest on almost automatic number ones. The campaign by Jon Morter, 35, and his wife Tracy Morter, 30, started when they established a Facebook group account named "Rage Against the Machine for Christmas No 1" designed to prevent another X Factor number one. A huge number of sympathisers subscribed to the group with reported members nearing one million individuals vowing to support the campaign. The grassroots movement was successful in prohibiting The X Factors 2009 winner Joe McElderry attaining the top spot with his cover version of the Miley Cyrus hit "The Climb". Rage Against the Machine outsold McElderry with 502,000 downloads sold against 450,000. An online JustGiving site was also established to donate proceeds to the Shelter charity. By 20 December 2009, over £70,000 (approximately $110,000).
This was not the first time the couple had tried this. In 2008 they had launched a campaign trying to make Rick Astley reach the top of the British Christmas chart.
Jon Morter even credits X Factor judge Simon Cowell for the anti X Factor movement gaining momentum. He said: "Simon's taken this as a personal attack. He's called us `stupid' and `cynical.' Well, it's not stupid and cynical to stand up and say I've had about enough and I'd like something different, please... I think the fact that we've rattled his cage is amazing," Morter said. "He's done us a huge favour. People who would have never cared about this are turned on now. So brilliant job, Simon."
The couple warned the public not to resort to mass buying by subscribing to a multiple downloads on same site just to add to sales figures. Tracy Morter in an interview with Gigwise warned that this may have a detrimental effect, adding: "Don't get too carried away buying lots of copies from one outlet as this could result in those purchases being disqualified from the count." The Facebook campaign site warned: "The official chart company have contacted me and would like to remind you all that 'bulk' purchasing will disqualify that entire purchase you've made from the chart count. So please be warned. We don't want you to waste your cash! They would like me to also state that there's no reason for anyone to require more than one track by themselves. Please let's not get this out of control and therefore the whole track being pulled from the final chart... I don't need to tell you how disastrous that would be for us all!"
The couple were criticised heavily by the media for choosing a song from the repertoire of Rage Against the Machine that was signed to Epic Records, a company owned by Sony, the same group that had released the McElderry single. But in an interview with BBC News, Jon Morter denied that this was a consideration.
Impressed by their successful campaign Simon Cowell offered them a job, although the couple declined. Cowell also praised the Morters for their conduct throughout the campaign saying: "I'm genuinely impressed by the campaign they have run. It has been a good campaign with no dirty tricks and without funding. They have been passionate and worked hard."

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