The White Stripes have dropped their federal lawsuit against Donald Trump for unauthorised use of their song Seven Nation Army in a video posted by campaign deputy director of communications Margo Martin in August.
Jack and Meg White are dismissing the case without prejudice and therefore could refile, Pitchfork reports. A lawyer for the band offered the website no comment.
Martin deleted the post, which prompted White to post on Instagram: “Oh....Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this.”
Soon after, the Whites filed a lawsuit listing six counts of copyright infringement, which stated that the Trump campaign had chosen “to ignore and not respond to Plaintiffs’ pre-litigation efforts to resolve the matters at issue in this action”, and in doing so “indiscriminately trampled on Plaintiffs’ legal rights”.
The suit stated that the band “vehemently oppose the policies adopted and actions taken by Defendant Trump when he was President and those he has proposed for the second term he seeks”.
In 2016, the band criticised the use of Seven Nation Army in another Trump campaign video and said the were “disgusted by this association, and by the illegal use of their song”. They subsequently sold T-shirts reading “ICKY TRUMP”, a riff on their final, 2007 album Icky Thump.
In the wake of Trump’s victory last week, Jack White posted at length on Instagram, criticising the president-elect and saying it was “absolutely dumbfounding” that the American people had elected him a second time. “Americans chose a known, obvious fascist and now America will get whatever this wannabe dictator wants to enact from here on in.
“We all know what he is capable of: Project 2025, deportations, nationwide abortion ban, ending his own 2 term limit, backing Putin and his war, shutting down the Board of Education, adding to climate change, limiting LGBTQ rights, controlling the DOJ, keeping the minimum wage down, etc.”
