Rock veteran Neil Young has filed a $10m lawsuit against a fundraising committee that supports US President Donald Trump, citing “unauthorised” use of his 1989 song Rockin’ in the Free World.
The Canadian-American star alleges that the Trump 47 Committee infringed on his copyright when it played the song before Trump took the stage at a 12 October rally in Ohio. Playing the song amounts to an “unauthorised public performance”, the lawsuit says.
The singer-songwriter sued the Trump re-election campaign in 2020 over its use of the same song and Devil’s Sidewalk. Young said the parties settled the matter shortly thereafter.
The White House referred to the Republican National Committee, who the BBC has contacted for comment.
Through his company Silver Fiddle Music, Young alleges that the song was played without a licence or Young’s permission at a political event in Youngstown, Ohio on 12 October.
In the US, music used at campaign rallies often requires a public performance licence for it to be played for an audience, even if a campaign has already purchased a legal copy of the recording.
According to US Congress, because sound recordings do not have a general public-performance right, permission is only needed from the musical-work copyright holders, which can be obtained directly from the copyright holders themselves or through performing rights organisations.
The five-page federal lawsuit says that Trump “was personally aware that a licence would be required to play the Song at rallies,” and that Young “has not, and would not, grant the required licence”. It also says the song has been played “numerous times at other rallies”.
The Grammy Award winner, 80, who has strongly opposed Trump’s politics, characterises the song as “a blistering anthem that contrasts the hollow promises of American political rhetoric with the harsh realities faced by the poor, homeless and forgotten”.
Young says that the song is “the opposite of everything that Donald J Trump stands for”.
In 2020, Young sued Trump’s re-election campaign for copyright infringement over the same song, as well as Devil’s Sidewalk.
The new lawsuit claims that the campaign, at the time, “asserted no defence and immediately settled shortly after it was served”, promising to never use the song without permission again.
Young posted about the lawsuit on his website on Tuesday, thanking Trump for coming to so many of his shows in the 1980s and 1990s, but stopped short of allowing him to play his music.
“I am sorry it came to this, but money and transactions are something you understand,” he wrote.
Young, The Rolling Stones, Rihanna, Adele, REM and the estate of Prince have previously criticised the president for using their music at campaign events.
