Some of music’s biggest stars are trying to mute Donald Trump’s use of their songs at his political events, including Celine Dion, Foo Fighters, Jack White of the White Stripes, ABBA, and the family of Isaac Hayes.
When it comes to playing songs at political rallies, there are two rights that are implicated, according to Kenneth Freundlich, a Los Angeles-based entertainment attorney and copyright expert: the musical composition and the recording of the song.
“The way I like to say it is: Irving Berlin wrote ‘White Christmas,’ but Bing Crosby recorded it. So there’s Irving Berlin you got to get a right from, and Bing Crosby you got to get a right from,” Freundlich explained.
“You don’t need to get the right from anybody to play the recording at a rally – just play it. But on the song side, they have what’s called a blanket license, which the campaigns generally get from the performing rights societies, such as ASCAP and BMI,” the Freundlich Law litigator said, referring to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc.
Team Trump says they have a right to play music through an agreement with BMI and ASCAP.
“The wrinkle is that if the artist writes to the foreign rights society that says, ‘We don’t want this song to be used politically,’ then the campaign doesn’t have the right to use it politically,” Freundlich said.
