| Eddy Grant Sued Trump on
Electric Avenue Now Says Commercial As Opposes
Dismissal
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Dec 28 – For unauthorized use
in an anti-Biden tweet of Eddy
Grant's song "Electric
Avenue," Donald Trump and his
campaign have been sued for
copyright
violation.
On December 4,
U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York
Judge John G. Koeltl held a
pre-motion conference. Inner
City Press covered and live
tweeted it, thread here
and below, followed by a
bit of copyright / Digital
Millennium Copyright Act
analysis.
Now on
December 28 Grant has opposed
Trump's motion to dismiss,
citing among other things Don
Henley's case against a
California Senatorial
candidate who used his song to
"denigrate his rival Barbara
Boxer, as well as Nancy
Pelosi, Barack Obama and 'cap
and trade and global warming
policies.'" Unlike Neil Young,
Grant is pressing forward.
Watch this site.
From Inner City
Press' December 4 thread:
The Trump
campaign lawyer says he wants
to move to dismiss without
discovery, calls it political,
non commercial use.
Judge Koeltl asks
Grant's lawyer: Do you want to
amend your compalint?
Grant's lawyer: No.
Showdown.
Judge
Koeltlt: OK, let's set the
date for response to the
motion to dismiss, and for the
reply. How about Dec 21 for
the response?
Lawyer asks
for Dec 28. Judge Koeltl
says, You're making it hard
for yourself, but sure. Ken
Caruso for Trump and campaign
to reply Jan 11.
[While
monitoring UN noon briefing
Inner City Press is banned
from by corrupt SG
@AntonioGuterres , here's from
Eddy Grant's complaint:]
"On August 12,
2020 at or about 9:35 p.m.,
Mr. Trump published a tweet
containing a 55 second video
(the “Infringing Video”)...
The
Infringing Video appears to be
an endorsement of Mr. Trump’s
2020 Presidential re-election
campaign [&] is also
clearly an attempt to
denigrate the Democratic
Party’s2020 presidential
nominee, Former Vice President
Joseph Biden.
... contains a visual
depiction of a high-speed red
train bearing the words “Trump
Pence KAG 2020” in stark
contrast to a slow moving
handcar bearing the words
“Biden President: Your Hair
Smells Terrific” [re-casting
an old ad]
As of the
date of the filing of this
Complaint, neither the
Infringing Video nor the Tweet
containing the Infringing
Video has been removed from
Twitter. Defendants have
failed &/or refused to
comply with Plaintiffs’
demands set forth in the
Aug13, 2020 letter."
While Inner
City Press will cover the
opposition and reply, and
ultimate decision, there have
been other fair use cases
against the Trump campaign.
In this case, the
defense argument is that "the
use is not simply a remake or
a recreation of the Song and
does not serve the same
intrinsic entertainment value
that is protected by
Plaintiffs’ copyrights."
Nickelback took a
different approaching, using
the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act to get Twitter
to take down a tweet that
included Joe Biden and his
son, Hunter, saying “LOOK AT
THIS PHOTOGRAPH!” along with a
video that included part of
Nickelback’s music video for
the 2005 song
“Photograph.”
Inner City
Press' experience
with misuse of the DMCA is a
UN Reuters reporter, now Human
Rights Watch UN rep Louis
Charbonneau, getting
Google to remove from Search a
leaked copy of his email
lobbying Antonio Guterres'
spokesman Stephane Dujarric to
oust
Inner City Press from the UN -
on the argument that a leaked
email is copyrighted, a truly
negative precedent for
investigative journalism.
We'll have more
on this.
This case is Grant et al. v. Trump et al., 20-cv-7103
(Koeltl)
***
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