Trump ordered to stop using song without permission

The Associated Press reported that U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Thrash presided over an emergency federal court hearing called in response to a lawsuit filed by Isaac Hayes III on behalf of the estate of his famous father. On Tuesday morning, Thrash issued an emergency injunction that bars the Trump campaign of any more uses of the 1966 hit single. The ruling prevents Trump from continuing to use the song at events and rallies, as he has allegedly done over 130 times. It does not require the campaign to remove videos of previous events that feature the song, an issue that will be litigated as the lawsuit continues.

Protecting artists’ rights and legacy

Hayes pointed out why protecting the song cowritten by his father is important to his family. He told reporters that “my father lost the rights to his music a year before I was born,” but due to copyright law, “that music started to come back” to the estate’s control after a period of 56 years, per The Hollywood Reporter. Beyond the importance of protecting the music that his father created, at a press conference Hayes declared of the injunction that “I want this to serve as an opportunity for other artists to come forward that don’t want their music used by Donald Trump or other political entities and continue to fight for music artists’ rights and copyright,” per THR.

Years-long fights over music rights

As Blavity reported, the Hayes family’s dispute with the Trump campaign has been going on for several years. The estate accused the Trump campaign of over 130 unauthorized uses of “Hold On, I’m Comin’” — a song written by Hayes and David Porter for the group Sam and Dave — since 2020. In August, Isaac Hayes III posted on his X account that the family was suing the Trump campaign. In the post, he shared a copy of a copyright infringement notice in which the Hayes family demanded “a payment of $3 million in licensing fees” for the unauthorized and uncompensated uses of the song, with the case leading to Tuesday’s emergency hearing. In addition to Hayes’ work, Trump has been accused of using music from dozens of artists without their permission.

As the 2024 presidential race intensifies in its last weeks before the November election, Trump is expected to do a significant amount of campaigning between now and election day. Given Trump’s criminal and civil woes, the victory for the Hayes family is unlikely to be at the top of the former president’s legal concerns. But the ruling and the threat of losing millions of dollars may make the campaign think twice about how often it uses artists’ music without their permission.