Every one of us musicians know the rules, you aren't allowed to broadcast sell or use an artist's work without their knowledge and /or permission.
...not quite. You're not allowed to broadcast, sell, or use an artist's work without written approval from whichever publishing house they sold it to, which nearly always involves paying a fee and nothing else. In the vast majority of cases, the artists themselves have no control over which people or groups are allowed to license their work, unless they're a big enough name to allow them the leverage to actually demand control/approval over which uses the song can be put to. And, frankly, at the time he wrote, and presumably sold the rights to, "Hallelujah," I very much doubt Cohen had that sort of leverage -- I mean, his own label refused to release the album it originally appeared on (famously, an executive at the label reportedly told him "We know you're great, Leonard, we just don't know if you're any good." ), and, for many years, that album was only available as an import from a small Canadian label.
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