Neil Young has filed a $10m lawsuit against a fundraising committee supporting President Trump, alleging it used his 1989 song Rockin' in the Free World without permission at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on October 12. The Canadian-American musician's suit, filed through his company Silver Fiddle Music, says the Trump 47 Committee's use of the track before Trump took the stage amounted to an "unauthorised public performance."
Young sued Trump's re-election campaign over the same song, plus Devil's Sidewalk, in 2020; he says that case settled shortly after it was filed, with the campaign promising never to use the song again without permission. In the US, campaigns generally need a public-performance licence to play music at rallies even if they have already bought a legal copy of the recording, since sound recordings themselves carry no general public-performance right — only the underlying composition's copyright holders can grant that. The new five-page federal lawsuit alleges Trump "was personally aware that a licence would be required to play the Song at rallies," that Young "has not, and would not, grant the required licence," and that the song has in fact been played "numerous times at other rallies."
Young, 80, has long been an outspoken critic of Trump's politics, describing Rockin' in the Free World as "a blistering anthem that contrasts the hollow promises of American political rhetoric with the harsh realities faced by the poor, homeless and forgotten" — and, he said, "the opposite of everything that Donald J Trump stands for." In a message posted to his website, Young thanked Trump for attending many of his concerts in the 1980s and 1990s, while making clear that gratitude did not extend to permission: "I am sorry it came to this, but money and transactions are something you understand," he wrote.
The White House referred inquiries to the Republican National Committee. Young joins a long list of musicians — including the Rolling Stones, Rihanna, Adele, R.E.M. and the estate of Prince — who have objected to Trump's campaigns using their music at rallies over the years, though few have gone to court over it twice with the same song.