“Oh… don’t even think about using my music you fascists,” Jack White wrote on Instagram in August. “Law suit [sic] coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your five thousands others).”
The White Stripes have filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump, claiming that they never gave the former president permission to use their music in campaign materials.
According to The Detroit Free Press, the two plaintiffs—once partners in a Michigan-based band—filed their lawsuit in a New York federal court earlier this week. In their complaint, Jack and Meg White allege that Trump committed copyright infringement by using the song “Seven Nation Army” in videos shared to social media.
The lawsuit was filed less than two weeks after Jack White indicated that he was planning to take legal action against the Trump campaign.
“Oh… don’t even think about using my music you fascists,” White wrote on Instagram in August. “Law suit [sic] coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your five thousands others).”
White also condemned the former president’s altercation with Arlington National Cemetery personnel, who had attempted to block the campaign from taking photographs in a restricted section of the cemetery.
“And as long as I’m here,” White added, “double fuck you DonOLD for insulting our nation’s veterans at Arlington you scum,” White wrote. “You should lose every military family’s vote immediately from that if ANYTHING makes sense anymore.”
The White Stripes’ lawsuit has political undertones, with the filing stating that both Jack and Meg White “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by [Donald Trump] when he was president and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks.”
Attorneys for the White Stripers say that Trump and his team “knew or should have known” that the use of the “highly-distinctive and immediately recognizable introductory riff” of “Seven Nation Army” was unlawful because Jack and Meg White “publicly denounced on various social media platforms in 2016 the unauthorized use of [the same song] in a pro-Trump campaign video for his first presidential run, stating in no uncertain terms that they were ‘disgusting by that association.’”
“Seven Nation Army,” the complaint alleges, is “among the most well-known and influential musical works of all time.” By using it without the band’s permission, the Trump campaign is allegedly seeking to “generate financial and other support for [Trump’s] campaign and candidacy on the backs of [the White Stripes], whose permission and endorsement he neither sought nor obtained in violation of their rights under federal copyright law.”
The lawsuit states that the Trump campaign and its deputy director of communications, Margo Martin, have failed to respond to the band’s requests—leaving the Whites with “no choice but to seek judicial recourse to hold Defendants accountable.”
Sources
Jack White, Meg White Hit Donald Trump With Lawsuit: ‘This Machine Sues Fascists’
The White Stripes file lawsuit against Trump over use of song: ‘This machine sues fascists’
White Stripes sue former President Donald Trump, campaign over song use
White Stripes sue Trump over ‘flagrant misappropriation’ of hit song
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