While guitarist/vocalist Jack White and drummer Meg White, known collectively as beloved garage-rock revivalists The White Stripes, have not performed an official show since 2007, the two appear to be joining forces for a new kind of collaborative endeavor: suing former President Donald Trump.
Late last month, Jack White shared an X post by the Trump campaign’s deputy director of communications, Margo Martin, which featured a campaign video using the recognizable guitar riff from The White Stripes arena anthem “Seven Nation Army” along with the caption, “Don’t even think about using my music. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your five thousand other.)” Both of the initial posts have since been removed.
On Monday, September 9th, White posted an image of the beginning of a civil suit filed in New York against Trump alongside the caption, “This machine sues fascists.” The suit, which seeks a jury trial, lists Jack White, Meg White, and the collective White Stripes entity as plaintiffs and Donald Trump, the Trump Presidential campaign, and Margo Martin as defendants. The lawsuit’s abstract reads:
John Anthony White p/k/a Jack White (“Jack White”) and Megan Martha White p/k/a Meg White (“Meg White”), individually and collectively p/k/a the White Stripes (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) … allege the following in support of their claims and causes of action against Donald John Trump (“Defendant Trump”), Donald J. Trump for President 2024, Inc. (the “Campaign”), and Margo Mcatee Martin (collectively, “Defendants”).
While much of the suit’s text is cut off in White’s post, it does display the first item in the plaintiffs’ argument: “This lawsuit seeks redress for a presidential candidate’s flagrant misappropriation of the musical composition and sound recording Seven Nation Army (collectively, the “7NA Works”).
View this post on Instagram
Elsewhere in the suit, per The Hill, The White Stripes note that they “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by [Trump] when he was president and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks.” They also allege that Trump and his team “knew or should have known the use of their “highly-distinctive and immediately recognizable introductory riff” from “Seven Nation Army” was unauthorized because The White Stripes had “publicly denounced on various social media platforms in 2016 the unauthorized use of the [the song] in a pro-Trump campaign video for his first presidential run, stating in no uncertain terms that they were ‘disgusted by that association.’” The lawsuit adds that since Trump and his campaign did not respond to their outreach, they were left with “no choice but to seek judicial recourse to hold Defendants accountable.”
Related: Fyre Fest Fraud Billy McFarland Reportedly Helping Connect Trump Campaign With Rappers
As U.S. intellectual property lawyer Jason Rosenblum explained to The Washington Post of the situation, The White Stripes’ case underlines the complexity of music copyright law. “‘If you want to use music in a video, you need a synchronization license,’ [Roseblum] said in an email Tuesday. Such a license is acquired through a different process than how rights are negotiated for public performances of music. Synchronization licenses typically require direct negotiation with whoever holds the rights to the recorded song, he added, usually the publisher or musician. ‘If Trump’s campaign or whoever posted the video didn’t get those rights, the White Stripes should have a strong case against them,’ Rosenblum said, although he cautioned that these cases aren’t always clear cut and that he wasn’t familiar with the details of this specific claim.”
The White Stripes are far from the first band to speak out and/or seek recourse against Donald Trump and his campaign for using their music without permission. Others who have challenged such usage by Trump include ABBA, Adele, Aerosmith, A-ha, Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Celine Dion, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Earth, Wind & Fire, Eddy Grant, Foo Fighters, Guns N’ Roses, Isaac Hayes, Linkin Park, Neil Young, The O’Jays, Ozzy Osbourne, Panic! at the Disco, Pharrell Williams, R.E.M., Rihanna, The Rolling Stones, Twisted Sister, Village People, and more.
While we wouldn’t hold our breath for The White Stripes to reunite outside of a courtroom any time soon, Jack White has been busy mounting an unorthodox tour in support of his latest solo release, No Name, mostly comprised of intimate shows at small clubs announced with minimal notice.
As he noted in a post about the “pop up shows” last month, “Lotta folk asking about when we are going to announce ‘tour dates,’ well, we don’t know what to tell you but the tour already started at the Legion a couple of weeks ago. People keep saying that these are ‘Pop up shows’ we’ve been playing, well, you can call them whatever you want, but we are on tour right now. These are the ‘shows’. We won’t really be announcing dates in advance so much, we will mostly be playing at small clubs, back yard getes, and a few festivals here and there to help pay for expenses. Shows will be announced as close to the show date as possible, some shows we won’t even decide to do until that morning. I also want to walk through orchard fields and grab apples off trees at will and fill my belly full of that fruit if the desire strikes me. I’m looking for that cool breeze you know?” For more information on upcoming Jack White tour dates, head here.
The post The White Stripes Are Reuniting… To Sue Donald Trump appeared first on L4LM.
