Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 14
I'm surprised I didn't see this earlier. The estate of Isaac Hayes, led by his son, is suing the Trump campaign for continued unauthorized use of the song "Hold On, I'm Coming" at the beginning of each Trump rally. This has been going on for some time, the estate sent prior written communication to the Trump campaign to stop its use and the Trump campaign ignored the notices and has continued to use the song.
This has happened with other artists as well but it seems surprising that a man indicted for at least 34 felony charges amid a Presidential race would be so flippant about ignoring ptential legal action that would trigger more court time. The Hayes case has had a hearing scheduled for Septeber 3, 2024. Of course, we'll have to see what the Supreme Court says about Presidential power and copyrights. Maybe the President has some special use clause that allows him to compile campaign mix tapes as long as they are only sold from the back of a 30 year old van in the parking lot outside the arena.
Of course, the real suprise here is the song selection. If Trump was going to violate copyrights on Isaac Hayes material, I would have thought he would have gone for Shaft. That's so much more on message for his campaign.
WTH
No. of Recommendations: 6
I'm surprised I didn't see this earlier. The estate of Isaac Hayes, led by his son, is suing the Trump campaign for continued unauthorized use of the song "Hold On, I'm Coming" at the beginning of each Trump rally.
I’ll be interested in this as well. Most concert venues buy what’s called a “blanket license” to play music, and they don’t need individual artist permission to do so. Blanket licenses were invented back in the early radio days to forestall the need for each individual station to enter into contract negotiations every time they played a song; the paperwork alone would be impossible.
There are probably some places which do not bother because of the cost: places that don’t typically use music, maybe county fairgrounds or college auditoriums or whatever. They can do individual licensing but again, don’t require the permission of the individual artists. It goes through the music licensing organizations ASCAP or BMI or others, and the artists have given them permission to act on their behalf.
(Licensing Simnon & Garfunkel songs for a Simon & Garfunkel concert would be unnecessary, so a school auditorium might not need such a license. But there’s a lot more music used at basketball games etc than in years past, so maybe that’s changed.
I would presume that objecting to a use would tend to stop it, if only because of the embarassment involved, but in truth I’ve been out of that arena for 25 years, so maybe it’s different now.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Republicans seem to do this a lot. As I recall, this is not unique to the convict. Several candidates over the past 20 (or more) years have used songs without authorization, and been threatened with suits if they didn't stop.
They should try songs by artists that would be happy to donate them to the Reps. Maybe Lee Greenwood, or Ted Nugent, or someone of that ilk.
