Owen Dean argues that Donald Trump could be sued in South African courts for violating the moral rights of Solomon Linda, the South African composer of “Mbube” (which became “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”), by using the song in a racist video that damages Linda’s honour and reputation as a respected cultural icon.
Donald Trump recently posted a video on his private social media platform, Truth Social, distributed for all to see, in which the heads of former US president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, are superimposed on the bodies of apes, conveying an unmistakable racist message.
The White House later removed the post, saying it had been created by an unnamed staffer. Regardless, Truth Social is owned by Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), an American company, which is majority-owned by Trump. Are there any legal steps that can be taken against Trump in South Africa for the post?
The lion sleeps tonight
The soundtrack on the controversial post features the well-known song, The Lion Sleeps Tonight in visual material derived from The Lion King, the famous Walt Disney movie. The Lion Sleeps Tonight also featured in the soundtrack of The Lion King.
The Lion Sleeps Tonight, one of the most successful popular songs ever created, is derived from a song named Mbube, composed in the 1930s by Solomon Linda, a South African.
As the composer, Solomon Linda was the original owner of the copyright in Mbube.
Mbube was later rearranged in the United States into a song called Wimoweh. In 1967, it was reconstituted into The Lion Sleeps Tonight, which featured new lyrics but still incorporated Mbube. Authorship of The Lion Sleeps Tonight was attributed to George Weiss, Hugo Peretti, and Luigi Creatore, overlooking the dominant presence of Mbube, the brainchild of Solomon Linda.
The Lion Sleeps Tonight was extremely successful and dominated hit parades around the world. Its crowning glory was its inclusion in the Walt Disney Enterprises movie The Lion King in 1994.
The comings and goings of ‘Mbube’
Solomon Linda died in 1962. But the copyright in Mbube was not part of his estate. He had divested his ownership of the worldwide copyright in 1952. However, an obscure provision of the British Imperial Copyright Act resulted in the copyright in Mbube in South Africa reverting to the executor of his estate in 1987.
READ | Solomon Linda - the musical genius behind The Lion Sleeps Tonight
At that time, Solomon Linda’s heirs were his daughters. But the fact that the ownership of the copyright in Mbube in South Africa lay vested in his estate was unknown to all, including his heirs. Knowledge about the status of the copyright in the song only came to light in 2002.
In 2004, the executor of Solomon Linda’s estate launched a copyright infringement case against Disney for the unlicensed use of The Lion Sleeps Tonight in The Lion King in South Africa. This litigation was intended to be a test case to establish and confirm the estate’s ownership of the South African copyright in Mbube. This case was conceived and conducted by the writer as the responsible attorney.
The Disney court case
In order to sue Disney for copyright infringement in South Africa, it was necessary to secure the court’s jurisdiction over Disney, a foreign-based company. This was achieved by the court ordering an attachment of Disney’s South African-registered trade marks and the South African copyright in its movie, The Lion King, in order to establish jurisdiction.
In defeating Disney’s challenge against the attachment, the court ruled that Linda’s executor had a valid claim for damages.
Two years later, the case was settled on the basis that the reverted copyright in Mbube vested in the executor of Linda’s estate, and it was entitled to damages arising from unauthorised use of the song; that Mbube was embodied in The Lion Sleeps Tonight; and that Linda was to be recorded as a co-composer of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Mbube gained recognition as an important part of South African culture. Solomon Linda was posthumously awarded a state medal for his valuable contribution to that culture. He and the song are South African cultural icons.
A discussion of the Disney case and its implications can be found in the writer’s recently published book Echoes of Injustice – The True Story Behind the Epic Song ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ and of the Battle for Reparation (Juta, 2025).
Copyright and moral rights
International copyright is governed by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. This convention lays down the template for member countries’ copyright legislation and also provides for all member countries to protect the works from other member countries as if they are domestic works (so-called “national treatment”).
The major objective of the convention is to provide economic protection to original works, allowing for commercial exploitation.
A subsidiary objective is to confer so-called “moral rights” upon authors in respect of their works. These rights inalienably attach to authors and remain with them or their heirs for the duration of the copyright in their works, irrespective of who owns the copyright.
Moral rights are essentially concerned with the right to be acknowledged as the author of the work (“paternity right”) and the right to object to the alteration or distortion of the work (“integrity right”).
In Section 20 of the South African Copyright Act the integrity right is formulated as follows: “to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of the work where such action is or would be prejudicial to the honour or reputation of the author.”
Since Mbube has been subsumed into The Lion Sleeps Tonight the Linda heirs hold moral rights in the latter.
Trump’s transgression
It is contended that by misusing The Lion Sleeps Tonight in conjunction with his racist slur against the Obamas and against black people in general, Donald Trump has distorted, mutilated, or otherwise modified the normal use of the song in a manner which is prejudicial to the honour or reputation of Solomon Linda. He has thus infringed the author’s right of integrity.
Solomon Linda is a cultural icon held in the highest esteem in South Africa. But Trump’s video uses Linda’s song in the course of delivering a grossly insulting and racist message, which, in turn, is prejudicial to Linda’s honour and reputation. By the nature of the medium used by Trump to perform his unlawful act, that act has been perpetrated throughout the world, including in South Africa.
In the premises, Linda’s heirs are entitled to sue Trump for violating their father’s moral rights and for damages in a court of law in South Africa.
Bringing Trump to book
The legal process for bringing Trump to book can be based on the model of the Disney case.
Trump has abused the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight in South Africa. He has therefore committed an unlawful act in this country, and he is thus liable to be sued in a South African court.
However, for this to happen, jurisdiction over him in the South African court must be established because he is a foreign resident. This can be achieved by attaching property owned by him in South Africa.
Trump has written several books that automatically enjoy copyright in South Africa, irrespective of whether or not they have been distributed in this country. In essence, Trump’s copyright is property that he owns in South Africa. The copyright in those works is capable of being attached in order to found jurisdiction over him for a claim in South Africa.
Following the example of the Disney case, the Linda daughters could sue Donald Trump in the High Court of South Africa for infringing their father’s moral right of integrity and claim damages from him. The daughters would thus vindicate their father’s honour and reputation.
Quo Vadis
It cannot be expected that the Linda daughters would be in a position to bring such a court case. However, others may be willing to help. The Department of Arts and Culture principally financed the Disney case. Perhaps it would be willing to emulate this gesture in order to uphold the honour and reputation of a veritable national cultural icon and challenges the outrageous racialism of Trump’s video.
- Owen Dean is a specialist Copyright attorney and Emeritus Professor of Mercantile Law at Stellenbosch University.
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