{"id":79167,"date":"2024-09-16T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T09:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=79167"},"modified":"2024-09-16T09:00:39","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T09:00:39","slug":"eddy-grant-wins-trumps-fair-use-of-electric-avenue-was-anything-but","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=79167","title":{"rendered":"Eddy Grant Wins: Trump\u2019s \u2018Fair Use\u2019 of \u2018Electric Avenue\u2019 Was Anything But"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"grant-trump-fair<\/a>As Donald Trump used every available resource to ensure his tenancy at the most recognizable house in the United States was extended, some social media platforms had adopted an unorthodox approach to his accounts.<\/p>\n

Despite receiving a number of takedown notices alleging copyright infringement in Trump\u2019s tweets, and in some cases removing content in response to apparently valid claims, the president\u2019s account wasn\u2019t suspended or terminated as is often the case. <\/p>\n

That allowed one of Trump\u2019s team to post a tweet containing a short animation; a train sporting Trump\u2019s campaign logo being pursued at some distance by rival Joe Biden on a railroad handcar failing to keep up. For reasons that remain unknown, the animator chose the 1982 hit \u2018Electric Avenue\u2019 by British singer-songwriter Eddy Grant as the animation\u2019s soundtrack.<\/p>\n

The animator didn\u2019t ask Grant for permission and when the Trump team spotted the animation on Twitter, a decision was made to post it on Trump\u2019s Twitter account, also without asking Grant for permission. Grant responded with a cease and desist notice and when that was ignored, Grant sued Trump and his team<\/a> for copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

Judge\u2019s Opinion Was Just His Opinion?<\/h2>\n

In an ideal world, the failure<\/a> of Trump\u2019s motion to dismiss in September 2021 should\u2019ve been seen as an opportunity to settle the case privately. <\/p>\n

A very small slice of humble pie and some tea, perhaps, so that everyone could move on. Or even negotiating the terms of the settlement Grant offered in August 2020 before filing the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Instead, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl\u2019s opinion and order, which painted a clear picture of how successful a fair use defense was likely to be in this matter, appears to have carried little weight with the defense. That was surprising.<\/p>\n

Judge Koeltl had described the use of Electric Avenue as \u201cwholesale copying\u201d to support a political ad campaign, and noted that the defense had misunderstood \u201cthe focus of the transformative use inquiry.\u201d The defense had also admitted that the animation was not fair use-friendly parody, but its less useful cousin, satire.<\/p>\n

Judge Koeltl went to state that the defense had offered no justification at all for their \u201cextensive borrowing\u201d nor had they provided any evidence that use of the work had caused no market harm. In fact, such was the total disconnect between the use of Electric Avenue and the animation, the campaign could\u2019ve chosen any other track, or indeed no track at all, to send the same message.<\/p>\n

Four Year Legal Grind<\/h2>\n

What the defense were hoping to find isn\u2019t clear but after failing to convince the court in October 2021 that Trump had \u201cPresidential absolute immunity<\/a>\u201d in respect of Grant\u2019s claims, the case dragged on for another three years, four years in total.<\/p>\n

Exactly a year ago, September 15, 2023, the plaintiffs and defendants filed motions for summary judgment at a Manhattan federal court. The defendants informed<\/a> the court that they would rely on a fair use defense, despite Grant\u2019s legal team asserting that discovery had \u201crevealed unequivocally\u201d that the use of Electric Avenue was not transformative. <\/p>\n

Fair Use Defense Fails, Defense Liable for Infringement<\/h2>\n

Judge Koeltl had formed the same opinion two years earlier and in an opinion and order dated September 13, 2024, he offers a reminder of his order handed down several years earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an Opinion and Order dated September 28, 2021, this Court denied the defendants\u2019 motion to dismiss. The parties have now filed cross-motions for partial summary judgment,\u201d Judge Koeltl notes.<\/p>\n

The Trump defendants asked the Court to dismiss part of the complaint based on their assertion that Grant lacked a valid copyright registration for the sound recording of \u201cElectric Avenue.\u201d The details are convoluted, but the bottom line straightforward; defendants\u2019 motion to dismiss was denied.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on the issue of liability. Oral argument was heard on September 6 and in his order, Judge Koeltl reveals that the plaintiffs\u2019 motion is granted. The defendants are liable for damages because their fair use defense comprehensively fails.<\/p>\n

Fair Use Analysis<\/h2>\n

\u201cIn this case, the Video has a very low degree of \u2018transformativeness,\u2019 if any at all. As this Court found in denying the defendants\u2019 motion to dismiss, the Video \u2018is best described as a wholesale copying of music to accompany a political campaign ad\u2019,\u201d Judge Koeltl notes, citing his opinion from 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendants also argue that the Video \u2018transformed Grant\u2019s original conception of Electric Avenue as a protest against social conditions into a colorful attack on the character and personality traits of a rival political figure\u2019. Again, \u2018the defendants\u2019 argument misapprehends the focus of the transformative use inquiry.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The inquiry does not focus exclusively on the character of the animation, the Judge notes. Rather, \u201cit focuses on the character of the animation\u2019s use of Grant\u2019s song.\u201d<\/p>\n

The defendants claimed that their use of the work gave them \u201cno commercial advantage\u201d but the Judge disagreed. <\/p>\n

In this case, the defendants benefited commercially from using Electric Avenue without paying a licensing fee. While there was no direct profit motive, that was insufficient to overcome the lack of transformative use and the first fair use factor favoring Grant.<\/p>\n

A Fair Use Full House For Grant<\/h2>\n

Once again citing his opinion and order from 2021, the Judge notes that the defendants conceded that Electric Avenue is a creative, published work, leading to the second factor favoring Grant.<\/p>\n

The third fair use factor considers the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole. This inquiry was also present in the opinion from 2021; in 2024, nothing has changed and still favors Grant.<\/p>\n

The fourth factor asks \u201cwhether, if the challenged use becomes widespread, it will adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.\u201d In this matter the Judge writes that there is no public benefit as a result of the defendants\u2019 use of Electric Avenue; they could\u2019ve used any song, even created their own, or used no song at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plaintiffs\u2019 ability to license \u201cElectric Avenue\u201d in the market for licensed music for videos\u2014political or otherwise\u2014would be affected by widespread, uncompensated use. Accordingly, the last fair use factor favors the plaintiffs,\u201d Judge Koeltl concludes.<\/p>\n

That leaves the question of damages; Grant previously requested $300,000, but it\u2019s likely the defense will have done their own calculations and arrived at a vastly lower sum.<\/p>\n

Judge Koeltl\u2019s opinion and order can be found here<\/a> (pdf)<\/em><\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Donald Trump used every available resource to ensure his tenancy at the most recognizable house in the United States was extended, some social media platforms had adopted an unorthodox approach to his accounts. Despite receiving a number of takedown notices alleging copyright infringement in Trump\u2019s tweets, and in some cases removing content in response […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79168,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}