Neil Young Posts Law Suit Against Trump Campaign, Upset Over Continued Song Usage When He’s Told Them To Stop

Neil Young has told Donald Trump in the past to stop playing his music. The Trump campaign does not have a proper license to play “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Devil’s Sidewalk,” both of which were played in Tulsa and Mt. Rushmore. So Young posted a lawsuit against the campaign to his Archives Tuesday. At the time of publication, Rolling Stone was unclear as to whether the suit had actually been filed yet. It did report that there were more defendants with the campaign to be added. 

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a long spat between Young and Trump that dates all the way back to June 2015, when Trump played “Rockin’ in the Free World” immediately after announcing his intention to run for president. Young expressed his displeasure then and did so again after Trump played the song at a 2018 rally — he expressed the same sentiment most recently after Trump played the Freedom cut at events in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Mount Rushmore.

Young’s lawsuit states: “The Campaign does not now have, and did not at the time of the Tulsa rally, have a license or Plaintiff’s permission to play the two Songs [‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ and ‘Devil’s Sidewalk’] at any public political event.” Young is seeking “statutory damages in the maximum amount allowed for willful copyright infringement.

The suit claims that the Trump campaign has “willfully ignored [Young] telling it not to play the Songs and willfully proceeded to play the Songs despite its lack of a license and despite its knowledge that a license is required to do so.” However, in a section right above that, the Young suit acknowledges that following the first dust-up over “Rockin’ in the Free World” in 2015, “the Campaign issued a statement stating that it had procured a license to do so, thus acknowledging that it knew a license is required.”

The Rolling Stones didn’t want Trump to use “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” anymore, so they removed the title from the BMI list of songs that politicians can use with a Political Entities License. The Stones did that right after Trump used the song at his Tulsa rally. At the rate things are going, Trump’s going to be blacklisted by every entertainer other than Kid Rock.