‘No Thanks’: Linkin Park Wants Trump to Stop Using Their Music at His Campaign Events

July 20, 2020

Linkin Park sent a cease and desist letter to President Donald Trump after his reelection campaign used one of their songs without approval.

What happened: On Saturday, Trump retweeted a campaign video that featured the rock band’s 2002 hit song “In The End.”

The video was originally tweeted by Dan Scavino, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications.
It used a cover of “In The End” by emerging artist Jung Youth, who immediately expressed distaste and wrote, “I stand firmly against bigotry and racism.”
Linkin Park swiftly took action through its management company Machine Shop Entertainment, which sent Twitter a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice.
Twitter then removed the content in question, saying that it responds to “valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives.”
Twitter has repeatedly clashed with Trump since May, disabling or commenting on his tweets over copyright complaints or policy violations such as “glorifying violence.”

The band’s response: In a statement, Linkin Park announced that it issued a cease and desist letter to the Trump campaign regarding the matter.

According to the band, it “did not and does not endorse Trump, nor authorize his organization to use any of our music.”
In an Instagram post, Joe Hahn, the band’s DJ, wrote “no thanks” in an apparent rejection of Trump’s choice to use their song.
The band appears to have hated Trump for years, with late frontman Chester Bennington calling the president a “greater threat to the USA than terrorism” in 2017.
Earlier this month, Neil Young also objected to Trump’s use of his music at the Mount Rushmore event celebrating Independence Day.
Other musicians who opposed Trump’s use of their work included the Rolling Stones, who threatened legal action, as well as the family of the late Tom Petty, which also filed a cease and desist notice.

Feature Image (right) via Getty

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