Neil Young has filed a $10 million copyright lawsuit against a fundraising committee supporting President Trump, alleging it played his 1989 song "Rockin' in the Free World" without a license at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on October 12.
The 80-year-old singer-songwriter, through his company Silver Fiddle Music, says the Trump 47 Committee's use of the track amounted to an "unauthorised public performance," and that the song has been played "numerous times at other rallies." The five-page federal suit says 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."
The second lawsuit over the same song
Young sued Trump's campaign in 2020 over its use of the same song, along with another track, "Devil's Sidewalk," and says the parties settled shortly after, with the campaign promising never to use his music without permission again. The White House referred comment to the Republican National Committee.
In the US, playing a sound recording at a public event such as a campaign rally generally requires a public-performance license from the underlying musical work's copyright holders, separate from simply owning a legal copy of the recording. Young, a vocal critic of Trump's politics, described the song in his complaint as "a blistering anthem that contrasts the hollow promises of American political rhetoric with the harsh realities faced by the poor, homeless and forgotten" — calling it "the opposite of everything that Donald J Trump stands for." In a post on his website, Young thanked Trump for attending his concerts in the 1980s and 1990s, but added: "I am sorry it came to this, but money and transactions are something you understand."