Dozens of top artists and songwriters have objected Donald Trumpuse of their songs at political rallies since he first ran for president in 2015 — among them the Rolling Stones, Adele, Rihanna, Sinead O'Connor's estate and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler.
“Think this is it – hang up now,” Johnny Marr said in January when Trump played the Smiths' “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” at several rallies. After Trump used Sam and Dave's “Hold On, I'm Comin'” at an NRA rally in 2022, his co-writer David Porter was even more succinct, tweeting: “Hell to the NO !”
But artists' track record for successful song drops has been spotty. After Tyler's reps sent multiple cease-and-desist orders objecting to the use of Aerosmith's “Dream On,” they received the following response from the law firm Jones Day: “Without accepting liability and to avoid any future dispute… the Trump campaign will not use your client's music,” the letter read in part.
However, it wasn't until July 31 in Harrisburg, Pa., that Trump used “Hold On, I'm Comin'” to close out his rallies — prompting the estate of co-writer Isaac Hayes to announce legal action. According to James L. Walker Jr.attorney for Hayes Enterprises, the estate is “investigating” the Trump campaign's use of the song and considering a lawsuit. “Everything is on the table,” he says. “It's very unfortunate that these artists have gone public on social media and asked the Trump team and other candidates not to use their music — and yet their candidates continue to use their music.”
(The Trump campaign did not respond to interview requests.)
For artists and songwriters, the appeals process is simple and the rules are straightforward. Performing rights organizations BMI and ASCAP require political campaigns to obtain licenses to use songs in their catalogs (ie, almost any recognizable song). “This license gives the campaign the right to use any of our music works across our entire catalog, wherever the campaign or feature is running,” says a BMI spokesperson. (Under both ASCAP and BMI rules, a venue's public performance license is not enough to cover a campaign's use of the song — it must obtain a separate civil license.)
A “caveat” in the license allows songwriters to object to use in a political campaign, the BMI spokesman adds: “When we receive an objection, we can remove a song from the campaign license.”
Does that stop a political campaign from playing the song at a rally? Not necessarily. “They don't care about artists' rights as much as you might like,” he says Larry Iserwho was Jackson Browne's lawyer when the singer-songwriter sued the Republican candidate John McCain for using “Running On Empty” in a 2008 ad. (They settled and McCain apologized.)
“It's not just the Trump campaign,” Iser adds. “Most political campaigns don't just want to take down the song.”
So what do artists and songwriters do in this scenario? For starters, their lawyers are sending cease and desist letters to the campaign. They also complain to journalists, generating negative media coverage. In 2020, the Rolling Stones threatened to sue the Trump campaign for playing “You Can't Always Get What You Want” at a rally, while Neil Young sued for using “Devil's Sidewalk” and “Rockin' in the Free World” from the campaign. » at events. (After the 2020 election, Young voluntarily dropped his suit “with prejudice,” meaning he can't make the same claim again. Trump appears to have stopped using the Stones song at his rallies, and the band was not mentioned (never that a legal threat followed, Stones representatives did not respond to questions.)
While “no artist wants to spend money on litigation if it can be avoided,” Iser says, they also want to “make sure fans understand that the artist is not endorsing that particular candidate.”
The issue becomes more complicated when campaigns stream their rallies online via YouTube or another site. In these cases, use of the song would almost certainly require an additional sync license, plus a sound recording license and possibly a mechanical license. “Your ASCAP license does not cover you from making a copy and redistributing it over the Internet,” he says Eleanor M. Lackmanpartner and copyright attorney at law firm Mitchell Silberberg and Knupp. As for social networking sites, which generally have licenses with major companies and publishers for users to broadcast songs on their streams, a TikTok spokesperson said the company would respond to a rights holder's request for takedown depending on the type of use and the song's contractual status : “If a licensed rights holder submits a takedown request, it will be reviewed and — if necessary — we may take steps to mute the track.” (A Meta representative declined to comment.)
Trump has not been uniquely bothered by legal threats and criticism from artists, but those conflicts had been brewing for years before his first presidential run. In 1988, George HW BushHis campaign used Bobby McFerrin's “Don't Worry, Be Happy” as a presidential campaign theme, but McFerrin, a supporter of Bush's opponent Michael Dukakishe complained — and the campaign eventually stopped using the song. In 2008, Sam Moore of Sam and Dave asked the Democratic nominee Barack Obama to stop using “Hold On, I'm Comin” at rallies because Moore didn't want to appear to be endorsing a presidential candidate — and the Obama campaign complied.
In other words, these kinds of conflicts are hardly new. “Every four years,” Lackman says, “that's the big thing.”
