Donald Trump Faces the Music

Former President Donald Trump could be facing a slew of lawsuits from ABBA, Beyoncé and many others after a federal court granted a temporary injunction preventing him from using a 1966 song at his campaign rallies.
On Tuesday, Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia, issued an injunction blocking further use of the song “Hold On, I’m Coming,” co-written by the late Isaac Hayes, without proper license.
“We are very grateful and happy for the decision. Donald Trump has been barred from ever playing the music of Isaac Hayes again. I couldn’t ask for a better decision,” Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, told reporters outside the courtroom.
The former president has regularly played the song before and after his rallies. It also featured at this year’s Republican National Convention.
Whether in 2016, 2020 or 2024, artists have regularly denounced the unauthorized use of their music by the Trump campaign. However, according to The Hollywood Reporter, until recently, not one had filed a lawsuit, let alone argued in court, against the former president. An attorney cited in the article revealed that the hassle and cost involved were simply not worth it.
“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,” had added Hayes’ son after the judge’s decision.
The former president likely felt he was on firm legal ground, as the song was performed by 60s soul group, Sam and Dave. The surviving member of the group, Sam Moore, who had sung “America the Beautiful” at Trump’s inaugural concert in 2017, offered support of Trump’s right to use the song in a legal document. In it, Moore said the song’s co-author, Isaac Hayes, had taken part in projects linked to “prominent Republicans” and even sang at the 20th high school reunion of Lee Atwater, a major Ronald Reagan campaign strategist.
That is not how the family of Isaac Hayes saw it. They went before Judge Thrash to stop the Trump campaign from using the song. Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, had already sent a cease and desist letter to the Trump campaign, along with a demand for $3 million in royalties and $150,000 for each additional time Trump uses the song.
In court documents, Trump’s lawyers were able to show that they had obtained written permission from the songwriter rights organization, BMI and said that Hayes had signed over the song rights to Stax Records in 1966.
Newsweek sought email comment from the Trump campaign on Thursday.
With the court still siding with the Hayes estate, despite the written permission, the floodgates may have opened for musicians seeking to stop Trump from using their music without their consent.
In August, White Stripes singer Jack White threatened to sue after Trump’s deputy director of communications, Margo Martin, shared a 10-second clip of the former president boarding a plane with the band’s hit “Seven Nation Army” as background. “Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.),” wrote White on Instagram. In 2016, White, and his former wife and drummer, Meg White, had already issued a statement, saying they had not granted permission to use the same song in a pro-Trump video.
After Trump used the Foo Fighters’ song “My Hero” in an August 2024 rally, while introducing Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the band said it had not granted Trump’s campaign permission to use the song. The group’s spokesperson later added that any increased royalties following the use of the song would be donated to Harris’ campaign.
Swedish supergroup ABBA was also among those objecting to Trump’s use of their music.
At an August rally in Minnesota, Trump used ABBA songs in video montages, including “Money, Money, Money,” “The Winner Takes It All,” and “Dancing Queen.” Once ABBA learned of this, the group and its parent label, Universal Music, issued a statement requesting that videos from the rally be taken down immediately, and that Trump stop using the group’s music for his campaign.
The same disapproval came from Beyoncé. In July, Beyoncé’s team granted permission for Harris to use her song “Freedom” in her campaign. In August, Republican spokesperson Steven Cheung shared a clip of Trump arriving in Detroit with the same song embedded. Soon after, Beyoncé threatened Trump with a cease and desist.
Music attorney Larry Iser, a managing partner at KHIKS law firm, told Newsweek that it is important to distinguish between the copyright of the music publishing and the copyright of the sound recording. Iser said the music publishing copyright involves “the underlying musical composition—melody and words” while the sound recording copyright involves any recording of those same melodies and words.
“In order to get paid for the public performance of their songs, songwriters affiliate with a public performance society such as ASCAP or BMI. [American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers or Broadcast Music, Inc],” Iser said.
“In order to play a song at a live campaign event, a political campaign must obtain a political entity license from BMI, ASCAP, or both, which permits the campaign to use any of the millions of songs in their respective repertoires—unless and until the campaign is notified by BMI/ASCAP that a particular songwriter has complained, such that the particular song is no longer part of the license. Once that happens, if the campaign uses the song, it’s an infringement, plain and simple.”
That may put Trump in quite a dilemma, even if, as in the Isaac Hayes case, he had obtained written consent from BMI.
“In this case, the Trump campaign used ‘Hold On, I’m Coming’ and received a letter from BMI informing the campaign that the song was removed from the BMI license because the copyright owner of the song, the Hayes Estate, complained about that usage, thus legally preventing Trump from licensing the song,” Iser said.
“While Isaac Hayes has passed, his family alleges that it still owns the songs and the copyrights. Under the political entities license, BMI has the right to delete certain songs from the license upon receiving complaints, and there have been lots of those complaints, obviously.”
Entertainment lawyer Colleen Kerwick told Newsweek that some families have been able to take back songwriting rights under Section 203 of the Copyright Act, which came into effect in 2013.
The act allows songwriters (and heirs) to take back their rights on material from labels and publishers—a major factor for older songs being used at Trump campaign rallies.
In the case of Isaac Hayes, “Trump claims that there was an assignment of that copyright to a third-party publisher who licensed the song to him. The right of reversion of that assignment back to the songwriter or his survivors pursuant to Section 203 of the Copyright Act may not apply to the time frame in issue,” Kerwick said. That means that the Isaac Hayes estate may be too late to lay claim to the late songwriter’s copyright but that would have to be determined by the court.
Though Judge Thrash sided with the Hayes estate about future use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” he denied their request to make the Trump campaign take down older videos that also used Hayes’ song. James Walker, the estate’s lawyer, clarified that the family’s good news was only preliminary, as the case was still headed to trial. Walker believes that during trial they will be able to prove that Trump’s campaign did not have proper licensing to use the song, and therefore would eventually be required to remove old videos using it.
Kerwick said that there was another approach that artists may use against Trump.
“The Estate of Isaac Hayes also raises the moral rights in the song, in that the use of the song may be perceived as being an endorsement of someone they don’t endorse.”