The Isaac Hayes estate secured a preliminary injunction to force Donald Trump’s campaign to stop using “Hold On, I’m Coming” at his events.
Federal Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. handed down the ruling at a hearing Tuesday, Sept. 3, saying, “I do order Trump and his campaign to not use the song without proper license” (via CNN). Thrash did, however, reject the Hayes estate’s request to force the Trump campaign to take down any old videos that may contain “Hold On, I’m Coming.”
Ronald Coleman, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, told Rolling Stone in an email, “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.”
A lawyer for the Hayes estate did not immediately return a request for comment, though Hayes’ son, Isaac Hayes III, did speak to reporters outside the courtroom in Atlanta following today’s decision. “We are very grateful and happy for the decision,” Hayes III said. “Donald Trump has been barred from ever playing the music of Isaac Hayes again. 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.”
At the same press conference, the Hayes estate’s lawyer, James Walker, did note that today’s ruling was only preliminary and the case is still slated to head to trial. He said he believed the Trump campaign would eventually be forced to take down any videos containing “Hold On, I’m Coming” after getting to trial and proving that the campaign didn’t have a proper license to use the song.
Trump has been using “Hold On, I’m Coming” — written by Hayes and David Porter, and popularized by Sam & Dave — at his rallies for years. While Sam Moore of Sam & Dave even performed at Trump’s inauguration event in 2017, the Hayes estate has long objected to Trump’s use of the song. They alleged that the song’s publishers, Universal Music Group and Warner Chappell Music, had tried sending a cease-and-desist to the Trump campaign back in 2020. The estate then sent its own last month, before bringing their $3 million lawsuit, claiming Trump had played played “Hold On, I’m Coming” at his rallies over 100 times since 2022 without permission.
As many of the artists who have objected to Trump using their music have learned, it can be difficult to actually stop a political candidate from using their music at rallies. Campaigns will obtain blanket political use licenses from publishers and rights management companies, and artists will have to ask their publishers to remove their material from those blanket licenses if they object to a particular candidate’s use of a song.
In court filings, the Hayes estate acknowledged that “Hold On, I’m Coming” was covered by one such license that the Trump campaign had obtained. They said the campaign was in the clear from Nov. 30, 2022, to June 5, 2024, but on June 5, the rights management company BMI sent the Trump campaign a letter saying “Hold On, I’m Coming” had been removed at the request of Dave Porter. Nevertheless, the Hayes estate — which says it owns the majority of the song’s copyright — said Trump continued to use the song at future events.
