{"id":2595,"date":"2024-09-13T20:45:18","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T20:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/donald-trump-infringed-electric-avenue-in-campaign-video-judge-says\/"},"modified":"2024-09-13T20:45:18","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T20:45:18","slug":"donald-trump-infringed-electric-avenue-in-campaign-video-judge-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/donald-trump-infringed-electric-avenue-in-campaign-video-judge-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump Infringed ‘Electric Avenue’ In Campaign Video, Judge Says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tDonald Trump<\/strong> infringed copyrights by using Eddy Grant\u2019s iconic \u201cElectric Avenue\u201d in a 2020 campaign video without permission, a federal judge ruled Friday (Sept. 13), rejecting Trump\u2019s argument that he made legal fair use of the song.<\/p>\n

\n\tGrant sued Trump in 2020 after the then-president used his 1982 hit in a social media video attacking Joe Biden<\/strong>. Grant said he reacted with \u201cdismay\u201d when he began receiving inquiries asking if he had approved the Republican candidate\u2019s use of his music.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump\u2019s lawyers had argued the video was shielded under copyright\u2019s fair use doctrine, which allows for the \u201ctransformative\u201d re-use of protected works in certain situations. But in Friday\u2019s ruling, Judge John G. Koeltl<\/strong> sharply rejected that argument.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn this case, the video has a very low degree of transformativeness, if any at all,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cThe video is best described as a wholesale copying of music to accompany a political campaign ad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson and an attorney for the Trump campaign did not immediately return requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump has repeatedly faced blowback amid the 2024 election from artists who don\u2019t want him to use their music. Beyonc\u00e9, Celine Dion, the Foo Fighters, ABBA and Sinead O\u2019Connor\u2018s estate have all spoken out or threatened action, and the White Stripes and the estate of Isaac Hayes have both filed lawsuits against him and his campaign.<\/p>\n

\n\tFour years earlier, Grant filed a similar case over Trump\u2019s \u201cwrongful and willful\u201d use of \u201cElectric Avenue,\u201d a funky, reggae-infused track about the 1981 Brixton riot, named for a road running through that London neighborhood. The song reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 in the summer of 1983 and ultimately spent 22 weeks on the chart.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe video at issue, shared by Trump on Twitter, featured a red \u201cTrump\u201d train outrunning a handcar driven by Biden, as audio clips of Biden\u2019s speeches played above Grant\u2019s 1982 hit. Grant\u2019s attorneys said the campaign had refused to remove the clip even after they were warned \u2014 meaning that Trump was acting as if he was \u201cabove the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFacing those allegations, Trump\u2019s legal team argued that the video amounted to fair use, claiming the campaign had transformed Grant\u2019s song into a vehicle to criticize Biden. In 2021, Judge Koeltl hinted that he would likely reject that argument on the grounds that it \u201cmisapprehends\u201d how fair use works, but he said it was too early to decide the issue.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, the judge made good on his warnings, largely adopting the same rationale as his 2021 decision. He noted that Trump\u2019s video \u201cdid not edit the song\u2019s lyrics, vocals, or instrumentals at all\u201d and had \u201coffered no justification for their extensive borrowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump\u2019s attorneys had argued that the video had \u201ctransformed Grant\u2019s original conception of \u2018Electric Avenue\u2019 as a protest against social conditions into a colorful attack on the character and personality traits of a rival political figure.\u201d But the judge was entirely unswayed by that defense \u2014 saying that it would only count as fair use if Trump had used the song to attack Grant, not Biden.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe animation does not use \u2018Electric Avenue\u2019 as a vehicle to deliver its satirical message, and it makes no effort to poke fun at the song or Grant,\u201d Judge Koeltl wrote, quoting directly from his earlier decision.<\/p>\n

\n\tFriday\u2019s ruling means that Trump and his campaign have been held legally liable for copyright infringement, but it leaves undecided the amount he must ultimately pay Grant in damages. That issue will be resolved in future proceedings.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for Grant did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump infringed copyrights by using Eddy Grant\u2019s iconic \u201cElectric Avenue\u201d in a 2020 campaign video without permission, a federal judge ruled Friday (Sept. 13), rejecting Trump\u2019s argument […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3418,375,1570,3417,3136,423,409,1556],"class_list":["post-2595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-avenue","tag-campaign","tag-donald","tag-electric","tag-infringed","tag-judge","tag-trump","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}