Larry Iser recently spoke to Law360, Washington Post, and Newsweek about the intellectual property disputes that often occur when elected officials or candidates use an unauthorized piece of music at a campaign event, speech, or political rally, which typically become more frequent around election cycles. Most recently, former President Trump’s use of the late singer Isaac Hayes’ song “Hold On (I’m Coming)” has been met with opposition and legal threats from his family.
Larry represented singer-songwriter Jackson Browne in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit during the 2008 election, when he sued then-presidential candidate John McCain and Republican Party organizations for using Browne’s song “Running on Empty” in a negative commercial about Barack Obama. This led to the Republican National Committee pledging not to use copyrighted music in campaign commercials without receiving the artist’s permission, setting a precedent for future cases. Drawing from this experience, Larry sheds light on the legal issues currently affecting the Trump campaign in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
“We approached the McCain campaign, the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party, and they all just basically blew us off,” Larry tells Law360. “And so we filed what is probably the first lawsuit of its kind.”
He continues in Newsweek, “The unauthorized use of songs during rallies or in political campaigns is extremely concerning to artists as it can be misconstrued as an artist’s support of a candidate and their positions.”
Larry recommends that an artist’s legal team should send a warning letter to campaign organizers if facing this issue.
“Artists should write to Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) or the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers to have them remove their song,” he tells Newsweek. “They should also have their legal representatives send cease and desist letters to the political organizations, urging immediate action and thus, informing them of legal consequences should they not comply.”
But, as Larry observes in the Washington Post, this strategy may not be successful when former President Trump’s campaign is using the artists’ music.
“Trump is the greatest abuser of musical property rights, ever, in terms of people running for president,” Larry shares. “Trump is a litigious guy. He likes to litigate. So, the usual checks and balances that we have as lawyers — ‘Hey we’re going to sue you. You don’t want to spend that money’ — it doesn’t really apply to Trump.”
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