Photo: Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters | By Emery Winter, Verify | During the last few presidential campaigns, various musical artists such as Neil Young, Aerosmith and Beyoncé have taken or threatened legal action in an attempt to block former President Donald Trump from using their music at campaign events. The issue recently reentered the spotlight after the Foo Fighters claimed that Trump didn’t have permission to use one of their songs at a recent campaign event and the Isaac Hayes estate sued Trump over the unauthorized use of Hayes’ music in late August.
Some on social media have suggested the artists’ complaints aren’t valid because the campaign had the license to play the music. We VERIFY whether campaigns have to get permission from artists to play their music at campaign events.
THE QUESTION
Can a political campaign play whatever songs it wants at events?
THE SOURCES
- American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
- Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI)
- 2020 letter from the Artist Rights Alliance (ARA) requesting both Republicans and Democrats to stop using music without artist consent on the campaign trail
THE ANSWER
No, a political campaign cannot play whatever songs it wants at events. The campaign needs a license to play the songs and even then could face legal challenges if it doesn’t get permission from the song’s artist first.
A political campaign must obtain a song’s licensing rights . . .
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Judge Rules Trump Must Stop Using Isaac Hayes Song During Campaign Events
Story by Paige Skinner, Huff Post | A federal judge ruled Tuesday that former President Donald Trump must stop playing “Hold On, I’m Coming” by Isaac Hayes during campaign events.
“I do order Trump and his campaign to not use the song without proper license,” Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. said in a hearing in Atlanta, according to CNN.
The ruling comes after the estate of the late R&B singer sued Trump for $3 million for copyright infringement for using the song at campaign events without permission or authorization. According to the lawsuit, the singer’s estate has “asked repeatedly” for Trump’s campaign not to use the song.
The estate also requested that Trump’s team take down any previously recorded uses of the song, but the judge denied that motion.
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Isaac Hayes’ Estate Receives Confirmation That Trump Has No License for “Hold On, I’m Coming”
By Scoop Harrison, Consequence
Next week, Donald Trump will appear in federal court in Atlanta over an injunction request filed by Isaac Hayes’ estate regarding the unauthorized use of the song “Hold On, I’m Coming.” Hayes’ estate is suing Trump for $3 million after allegedly finding 134 instances where the former president used “Hold On, I’m Coming” at campaign rallies without permission.
In anticipation of next week’s hearing, Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, says the estate has received confirmation from BMI — the organization that administers licensing rights — that Trump’s campaign does not and has not “had a political use license to play ‘Hold On I’m Coming’ for quite some time.”
Political campaigns obtain a “political entities license” from organizations such as BMI or ASCAP in order to play music during rallies and other official events. However, artists have the ability to pull their music from these licenses.
Hayes’ estate asserts that it withdrew its licensing rights once Trump started using “Hold On, I’m Coming” at his rallies in 2020. Despite this, Trump allegedly continued to play the song, leading the estate to claim he is liable for a $150,000 fine for each instance, amounting to a total of $3 million.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/isaac-hayes-estate-receives-confirmation-174727198.html
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ABBA Demands Trump Campaign Stop Using Their Music at Rallies
Story by Miranda Bryant, The Guardian | Abba have demanded that Donald Trump stop using their music after the former US president played several of their songs and used footage of the group at a campaign rally.
The Republican presidential candidate played hits including Money, Money, Money, The Winner Takes It All and Dancing Queen at his event in St Cloud, Minnesota, the US state with the highest Swedish population, on Tuesday, the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported.
The campaign also showed film footage of Abba members on a big video screen at the hockey stadium alongside messages urging supports to donate.
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Abcarian: The incredibly long list of musicians who have demanded that Trump stop using their songs
Opinion by Robin Abcarian, L.A. Times
I counted at least 41 artists who have tried to forbid him from using their tunes, including the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Queen, Elton John, Guns N’ Roses, the Foo Fighters, and Bruce Springsteen, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 after calling on Trump to stop playing “Born in the U.S.A.”
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There is a clause in the agreement, however, that allows BMI to exclude certain music if a songwriter or publisher asks the organization to withhold it. For example, the Rolling Stones were unhappy that Trump used “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as his walk-off music in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. They sent cease-and-desist letters to no avail and then turned to BMI for help and explicitly threatened to sue. “If Donald Trump disregards the exclusion and persists,” the Stones said in a June 2020 statement, “then he would face a lawsuit for breaking the embargo and playing music that has not been licensed.”
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Photo: Dave Grohl | From the Foo Fighters’ Facebook page – photo by Andy K. Taylor