It’s been big news this week with Donald Trump winning the recent US presidential election. While there’s been plenty of commentary on that development, we’re going to explore some of the music copyright infringement cases that have involved Donald Trump.
When it comes to song copyright, there are legal processes involved for their use in political ads and big campaign events. For ads, typically the campaign would need to contact the song’s publisher and/or the artist’s record label to negotiate the appropriate licenses with them. This includes internet videos.
For large public campaign rallies, most big venues already have “public performance” licenses with certain music organisations that cover any song in those organisation’s catalogues. Campaigns usually purchase their own license in case the venue doesn’t cover their choice of music.
In America, musical acts can still sue political campaigns for using their music under “Right of Publicity” laws that protect someone’s image or the “Lanham Act” which guards against unauthorised use of a trade marked brand name and “false endorsement.” Many musicians don’t want to be associated with particular politicians.
In Australia, rock legend Jimmy Barnes formally denounced anti-islam political groups Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front for using Cold Chisel hits at their events. And in 2019, US band The Twisted Sisters and Universal Music announced they were ‘Not Gonna Take’ Clive Palmer using their song without a license.
Universal Music Group, who own the song publishing rights to Twisted Sister’s song ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, sued politician Clive Palmer for his extensive use of the song in multi-million dollar TV and YouTube advertisements.
They filed copyright infringement proceedings against Mr. Palmer in the Federal Court on February 6th 2019.
At the time, Jay Jay French, the manager of Twisted Sister, tweeted; “Twisted Sister does not endorse Australian politician Clive Palmer, never heard of him and was never informed of Clive Palmer’s use of a re-written version of our song We’re Not Gonna Take It. We receive no money from its use and we are investigating how we can stop it.”
Clive Palmer released a statement saying, of the version his party are using, that he “wrote the words personally that appear on our promotion and hold(s) the copyright for those words.” He also went on to say that Twisted Sister have used an old 18th Century hymn ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ as inspiration for their ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ song and he “doesn’t understand how they have ever had any claim to its copyright.”
Twisted Sister claimed that Clive Palmer originally contacted Universal Music enquiring about their licensing fee to use their song. He received notification of that fee and decided not to purchase it before releasing his own version of the song.
Donald Trump’s Multiple Lawsuits for Music Copyright Infringement
In 2020, Donald Trump’s administration held their first rally post Covid-19 to kickstart the revival of his re-election campaign.
Trump’s team used Tom Petty’s ‘Won’t Back Down’ to introduce President Trump to the stage which is common practice for politicians at many political events.
Tom Petty’s family issued a formal cease and desist letter to the Donald Trump campaign over its use of his song (read more here).
In the past, many other musicians have attempted to prevent the Trump campaign from playing their music at his events including Neil Young, Rihanna, Elton John, REM, Adele, Guns n Roses, The Rolling Stones, Pharrell, Queen, Prince, Aerosmith, The White Stripes and Earth Wind and Fire. Many of them have proceeded with formal legal action against Trump.
The music lawsuits are a separate type of litigation from Trump’s more high-profile lawsuits, opening up a window into the complex legal landscape that politicians and their campaigns must navigate when using music — particularly when it comes to the issue of copyrighted material.
Check out this NPR article exploring this issue in further detail here.
Due to Trump’s rampant misuse of songs at his rallies without the appropriate licensing approval, a group of artists including Mick Jagger, Lorde, Sia, Blondie, Sheryl Crow, Green Day, Lionel Richie, Elvis Costello, Keith Richards, Steven Tyler and Rosanne Cash in collaboration with the Artist Rights Alliance, signed a letter demanding that politicians seek permission before playing their music at campaign rallies and public events. There’s a dedicated Wikipedia page listing each case in detail here.
