Former President Donald Trump faces a host of lawsuits from ABBA, Beyoncé and a host of other artists after a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking him from playing the 1966 song at his campaign rallies.
On Tuesday, Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia, issued a preliminary injunction barring the use of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” a song co-written by the late Isaac Hayes, without proper authorization.
“We are very grateful and pleased with the verdict. Donald Trump will never be able to play Isaac Hayes’ music again. We couldn’t have asked for a better sentence,” Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, told reporters outside the courtroom.
The former president has regularly performed the song before and after rallies, and it was also performed at this year’s Republican National Convention.
Artists have regularly called out the Trump campaign for using their music without permission in 2016, 2020, and 2024. But until recently, no artists had filed a lawsuit against the former president, let alone argued in court, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Lawyers quoted in the article said the hassle and expense involved just weren’t worth it.
“Hopefully this will be an opportunity for other artists to come forward who don’t want their music used by Donald Trump or any other political party,” Hayes’ son added after the verdict.
Because the song was performed by ’60s soul group Sam and Dave, the former president seemed to feel he was on strong legal ground. Sam Moore, a surviving member of the group who sang “America the Beautiful” at Trump’s inauguration concert in 2017, expressed support for Trump’s right to use the song in legal documents. In them, Moore said the song’s co-writer, Isaac Hayes, worked on projects with ties to “prominent Republicans” and also sang at the 20th anniversary high school reunion of Lee Atwater, a key strategist for Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign.
Photo illustration: Newsweek/Getty
Isaac Hayes’ family didn’t think so. They sued in Judge Thrash to block the Trump campaign from using the song. Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, had already sent a cease and desist letter to the Trump campaign, demanding $3 million in royalties and $150,000 for each additional time Trump uses the song.
In court documents, Trump’s legal team said they received written permission from songwriters’ rights group BMI to prove that Hayes transferred the rights to the song to Stax Records in 1966.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment on Thursday.
The court’s decision to still side with the Hayes Foundation, despite written permission, could open the door to lawsuits by musicians trying to stop Trump from using their songs without permission.
“Don’t even think about using my music.”
In August, White Stripes singer Jack White threatened to sue President Trump after his deputy communications director, Margo Martin, shared a 10-second video of the former president boarding a plane with the band’s hit “Seven Nation Army” playing. “Fascists, don’t even think about using my music. My lawyers will sue you for this (adding to your 5000 lawsuits),” White wrote on Instagram. In 2016, White and his ex-wife, drummer Meg White, had already issued a statement saying they did not give permission for the song to be used in a pro-Trump video.
After President Trump used the Foo Fighters song “My Hero” to introduce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a campaign rally in August 2024, the band said it had not given the Trump campaign permission to use the song. A band spokesman later added that any increased royalties from the song’s use would be donated to the Harris campaign.
Swedish supergroup ABBA are among the groups who have spoken out against Trump’s use of their music.
At a rally in Minnesota in August, Trump used a video montage of ABBA songs, including “Money, Money, Money,” “The Winner Takes It All” and “Dancing Queen.” When ABBA learned of this, the group and its parent company, Universal Music, issued a statement demanding that the rally video be immediately removed and that Trump not use the group’s music in his election campaign.
Similar objections came from Beyoncé. In July, her team gave Harris permission to use her song “Freedom” on the campaign trail. In August, Republican spokesman Steven Chang shared footage of Trump arriving in Detroit with the same song embedded in it. Shortly after, Beyoncé threatened to cease and desist from the song.
“Clear and simple infringement”
Music lawyer Larry Eiser, managing partner of the KHIKS law firm, told Newsweek that it’s important to distinguish between music publishing copyright and sound recording copyright. Eiser said that music publishing copyright includes “the underlying musical composition — the melody and lyrics,” while sound recording copyright includes all recordings of the same melody and lyrics.
“Songwriters join public performance associations like ASCAP or BMI (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or Broadcast Music Association) in order to be paid for performing their songs in public,” Iser says.
“To perform songs at live campaign events, political campaigns must obtain a political entity license from BMI, ASCAP, or both. This allows campaigns to use any of the millions of songs in their respective repertoires, unless and until the campaign receives notice from BMI/ASCAP that a particular songwriter has filed a complaint and that particular song is no longer part of the license. Once notice is received, any use by the campaign of the song would simply amount to copyright infringement.”
That could pose a significant dilemma even if Trump had written consent from BMI, as he did in the Isaac Hayes case.
“In this case, the Trump campaign used ‘Hold On, I’m Coming’ and received a letter of notice from BMI stating that the song had been removed from BMI’s license because the Hays Foundation, the copyright holder of the song, had complained about its use. This meant that the Trump campaign could no longer legally license the song,” Eiser said.
“Although Isaac Hayes has passed away, his family claims they still own the songs and copyrights. Under the Political Entities License, BMI reserves the right to remove certain songs from the license if it receives complaints, and unsurprisingly, it has received numerous such complaints.”
Entertainment lawyer Colleen Kerwick told Newsweek that some families have been able to get songwriting rights back under Section 203 of the Copyright Act, which came into effect in 2013.
The law allows songwriters (and their heirs) to reclaim the rights to their songs from labels and publishers, and is a major factor in the use of old songs at Trump rallies.
In the case of Isaac Hayes, “Trump alleges that the copyright was assigned to a third-party publisher who licensed the song to him. The right under Section 203 of the Copyright Act to return that assignment to the songwriter or his survivors may not apply to the period at issue,” Kerwick said. That means it may be too late for the Isaac Hayes estate to assert copyright claims against the late songwriter, but that’s something the court must decide.
Judge Thrash sided with the Hayes estate regarding future uses of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” but denied the estate’s request to have the Trump campaign remove old videos that used the Hayes song. James Walker, an attorney for the estate, made it clear that the good news for the family is only preliminary, as the case is still heading to trial. Walker is confident that during the trial they will be able to prove that the Trump campaign did not have the proper license to use the song, and therefore will ultimately be required to remove old videos that use the song.
Kerwick said there’s another approach artists could use against Trump.
“The Isaac Hayes Estate also asserts moral rights in the song, in that use of the song could be perceived as an endorsement of someone they do not endorse.”
