The White Stripes singer Jack White called Donald Trump’s campaign “fascists” and threatened to sue after an aide apparently used a clip of the band’s hit Seven Nation Army on a pro-Trump social media post.
Trump’s deputy director of communications, Margo Martin, shared a brief 10-second video clip of Trump boarding a plane to campaign events with the music as a background soundtrack.
The move clearly angered White, who rapidly became the latest in a long line of musicians to take umbrage at their art being used as a soundtrack to Trump’s bid to retake the White House.
On Instagram White wrote: “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.) Have a great day at work today Margo Martin.’
I don’t know why or how this keeps coming up. All musicians who want or don’t want their music used by a politician or political party should be on a list. If the song is on the banned list and it’s used, instant fine.
That’s not really how copyright law works though.
It’s a civil issue which means the aggrieved party needs to file a suit.
It’s obviously just easier and cheaper for trumps team to do it this way. There’s no back and forth asking for permission (that would be declined anyway). They just do it, then pay a few grand to settle later
But we’re not talking copyright laws, we’re talking Fair Use and I think musicians should be allowed to say, it’s fair use or X and not for Y
Fair Use in Campaigns
Fair use is a (difficult) defense to being sued for infringing copyright. The copyright holder doesn’t get to say what is and isn’t fair use-- that’s a multifactor largely qualitative assessment preformed in the court room.
It’s easy to just reach out to the artist and request permission. They have agents for that sort of thing, the campaigns have staff that can do that sort of thing. It’s gotta be better than making assumptions with your blanket license and then getting bad PR and lawsuits after the fact.
Unless you’re Coolio. Then your agents agree to whatever, and cause drama with the most wholesome man in music.