{"id":5053,"date":"2025-04-02T22:52:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T22:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/donald-trump-cant-dismiss-isaac-hayes-copyright-lawsuit-judge-rules\/"},"modified":"2025-04-02T22:52:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T22:52:41","slug":"donald-trump-cant-dismiss-isaac-hayes-copyright-lawsuit-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/donald-trump-cant-dismiss-isaac-hayes-copyright-lawsuit-judge-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump Can’t Dismiss Isaac Hayes Copyright Lawsuit, Judge Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span> federal judge says President Donald Trump must face a copyright lawsuit filed by the estate of Isaac Hayes over the president\u2019s alleged use of the 1966 song \u201cHold On, I\u2019m Coming\u201d on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a ruling issued Wednesday (April 2), court records show that Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. denied a motion by Trump\u2019s attorneys to dismiss the case over \u201cHold On,\u201d which Hayes co-wrote before it was performed and released by the duo Sam & Dave.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeeking the end of the case, attorneys for Trump had argued that the estate of the late soul legend had failed to show that \u201cthey even own the rights they claim have been infringed\u201d by the campaign: \u201cThey have no copyright, much less a copyright claim.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut at a hearing Wednesday, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution<\/em><\/a>, Judge Thrash said the Hayes estate had done just enough to avoid having the case tossed at the outset: \u201cI think that the second amended complaint \u2014 in spite of all its problems, and there are quite a few \u2014 adequately alleges ownership of the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for the Trump campaign declined to comment. Brittney\u00a0Dobbins, an attorney for the estate, said: \u201cWe are pleased with today\u2019s ruling. The judge made the right decision. Now, we are looking forward, and are prepared to litigate this case on the merits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHayes\u2019 estate sued Trump last summer, accusing the campaign of using \u201cHold On\u201d at rallies and in video recordings of those events. The case accused the campaign of infringing copyrights, but also of violating federal trademark law \u2014 essentially claiming that the campaign\u2019s use of the song made it appear that Hayes or his heirs had endorsed Trump\u2019s bid to return to the White House.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Hayes estate joined many other artists who spoke out against Trump using their music on the campaign trail during the 2024 election. Beyonc\u00e9, Celine Dion, the Foo Fighters, ABBA and Sinead O\u2019Connor\u2018s estate all voiced opposition \u2014 some merely with social media posts and others with cease-and-desist letters from their lawyers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe White Stripes, like the Hayes estate, filed a copyright lawsuit against Trump over his use of their iconic \u201cSeven Nation Army,\u201d though the band later voluntarily dropped it shortly after the election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge says President Donald Trump must face a copyright lawsuit filed by the estate of Isaac Hayes over the president\u2019s alleged use of the 1966 song […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[429,299,1570,3258,3257,423,303,351,409],"class_list":["post-5053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-copyright","tag-dismiss","tag-donald","tag-hayes","tag-isaac","tag-judge","tag-lawsuit","tag-rules","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}