Former President Donald Trump has been temporarily blocked from playing music legend Isaac Hayes’ songs at his political rallies by a federal judge.
Court documents on Tuesday showed that Judge Thrash “issued the short-term ban from Atlanta as a buffer until Hayes’ family follows through with their lawsuit, which seeks a permanent injunction. Trump, who has played the song as his exit music, won’t have to remove any of the previous online videos that included it,” according to TheWrap.
On Aug. 11, Hayes’ estate sent a cease-and-desist order Trump’s team over the unauthorized use of the song. In the letter, which was published on social media by former CNN contributor Roland Martin, called on Trump’s campaign to pay $3 million, remove any videos of Trump rallies or other campaign media using the song and release a statement noting that Hayes’ estate and family have not authorized the campaign to use the artist’s music.
Hayes’ attorneys noted in the letter that the $3 million requested by the estate is “a very discounted fee” from the usual rate of $150,000 per use of the song, which based on the number of times “Hold On” has been used by the campaign, would lead to a total that “will be 10 times as much if we litigate.” The estate followed up with a deadline of Aug. 16 to receive a response from Trump’s team, mentioning that it would sue his camp if it didn’t reply.
Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, celebrated the temporary block.
“We are very grateful and happy for the decision by Judge Thrash … I couldn’t ask for a better decision. I want this to serve as an opportunity for other artists to come forward that don’t want their music used by Donald Trump or other political entities,” he told reporters.
The Trump campaign told the New York Times that the song has been removed from the playlist.
“The campaign had already agreed to cease further use. We’re very gratified that the court recognized the first amendment issues at stake and didn’t order a takedown of existing videos,” Ronald Coleman, Trump’s campaign lawyer reportedly said.
The estates of deceased performers Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty and Prince have also taken issue with the Trump campaign for playing their songs.
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