(Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)
Donald Trump and his campaign are due in court on September 3, after a federal judge set an emergency hearing to address allegations that Trump has persistently infringed intellectual property rights held by the estate of the late Isaac Hayes.
Could you even imagine Donald Trump taking someone else’s hard work and using it for himself without paying or even seeking consent? Yet here we are.
In a complaint filed last week, the Hayes estate alleges that Trump and his campaign have used the Sam and Dave classic “Hold On, I’m Comin’” at least 150 times at Trump events. Hayes co-wrote the song and the estate holds those rights. The publishers of the song previously sent Trump a cease and desist letter that he promptly ignored and now the composer’s estate is following up.
Some of the performances cited in the complaint involve cover bands, but in many instances, Trump’s campaign just went ahead and played the original sound recordings. As more and more recording artists object to Trump’s willy-nilly IP theft, the campaign attempted what the complaint characterizes as a “Post Ipso Facto License.”
Upon information and belief on August 7, 2024, four (4) years and an estimated one hundred and fifty (150) individual infringements after Mr. Trump began his unlawful use of the Copyrighted Song, a representative of the Trump Campaign contacted Plaintiffs but never issued or signed a license.
The complaint alleges infringement of both the composition and the sound recording against Trump and the campaign but also contributory infringement against the RNC, Turning Point USA, the American Conservative Union, BTC, and the NRA, who all used the music for Trump’s appearances at their events. Which also plays into the plaintiff’s accounting claim because while running for president may not be an income generating endeavor — wink wink — some of these conferences definitely charged attendants.
All the defendants face false endorsement and false advertising claims based on the suggestion that the campaign really did secure the rights to the song.
These literally false and/or misleading uses of Songwriter’s widely recognized celebrity and legacy in connection with the Defendants’ unlawful use of the Copyrighted Work, deceived or tended to deceive a substantial number of reasonable consumers, and lead them to believe that Songwriter and Plaintiffs assented to Defendants use of the Copyrighted Work. Defendants’ false endorsement and advertising and its effects on Plaintiffs’ intellectual property were and are material to consumers’ purchasing decisions in deciding whether to purchase Plaintiffs’ products. In addition, these literally false and/or misleading endorsements and advertisements continue to actually deceive or tend to deceive a substantial number of reasonable consumers of Songwriter’s music and are likely to be material to consumers’ purchasing decisions.
It’s a powerful charge since the only counter is the too clever by half, “hey, no one seriously believes any talented artist has endorsed this campaign.” Which might be true but would vitiate false advertising law as a concept if someone could just coopt and undermine intellectual property at will by becoming too detestable to be endorsed.
As Law and Crime notes, Hayes isn’t the only artist claiming that Trump used music without permission:
Trump has been widely known to use popular music without authorization during his campaigns for president. This summer, Celine Dion called Trump out for playing “My Heart Will Go On” without permission. Artists including Beyoncé, Foo Fighters, Neil Young, Aerosmith, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, Prince, Linkin Park, Guns N’ Roses, and Journey have made similar claims that Trump used their music without permission.
But, for now, the Hayes estate is the only one seeking legal redress. Now that there’s a model complaint some of these groups might consider joining the fray.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
