Neil Young has officially filed a $10 million copyright infringement lawsuit against Trump 47 Committee Inc., and it centers on one very familiar song. According to the complaint filed in federal court in Virginia on October 26,“Rockin’in the Free World”was played at an October 12 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, and at other midterm events. Young’s attorneys describe the track as a blistering anthem about the gap between political promises and the struggles of disadvantaged communities, and the filing includes the already-viral claim that the song is“the opposite of everything that Donald J. Trump stands for.”
What makes this one notable is the history. Trump used the same song at his 2015 campaign launch, and a prior lawsuit over its 2020 use was settled with a promise not to play it again without authorization. This time, Young is seeking damages plus an injunction blocking any further political use of his music. Trump is not named as an individual defendant, the committee is. It’s also part of a bigger trend of artists objecting when campaigns borrow their catalogs without permission, from Taylor Swift to streamers like PlaqueBoyMax calling out White House song use.
So the question hanging over all of it: is $10 million a fair price for a campaign soundtrack, or is this less about the money and more about setting a boundary that sticks? Either way, the song itself is now doing more political work than it ever did on the charts, and the court filings are just getting started. Drop your take below: should campaigns need explicit permission before pressing play on any artist’s music?
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Local Lawton
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