[NY Post] Trump may have violated copyright law by selling mugshot merchandise

they got the b*stard now

https://nypost.com/2023/09/05/trump-may-have-violated-copyright-law-by-selling-mugshot-merch/

Trump may have violated copyright law by selling mugshot merchandise
By
Melissa Koenig
Published Sep. 5, 2023
Updated Sep. 5, 2023, 2:07 p.m. ET

Donald Trump’s campaign may have violated United States copyright law by selling merchandise featuring the former president’s mugshot, legal experts have warned.

The Republican front-runner’s campaign wasted no time capitalizing off the mugshot made of him at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, featuring the former president scowling into the camera.

Merchandise emblazoned with the historic photo and the slogan “Never surrender” was quickly hawked for between $12 and $34.

Within just three days, the Trump campaign made $7.1 million off the merch, which included T-shirts, mugs, koozies and bumper stickers.

But legal scholars say that money may rightfully belong to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, which took the photo, as US copyright law stipulates that the law enforcement agency that takes a mugshot is the legal owner of it.

“In the context of photographs taken by law enforcement during the booking process, the author of the mugshot photograph is the law enforcement agency,” the 2022 University of Georgia School of Law’s Journal of Intellectual Property Law states.

As such, Betsy Rosenblatt, a professor at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Law, says there are limitations to what people may do with such photographs.


The Trump campaign has been fundraising off the mugshot of him made at the Fulton County Jail on Aug. 24.
FULTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE/AFP via Getty Images

“You’re prohibited from using it for a number of things without authorization,” she told Spectrum News 1 Ohio.

“You’re prohibited from reproducing it, making a derivative work of it, distributing it without authorization, or that is to say distributing anything that isn’t the one copy you already lawfully have, and various other things. Making a public display of it, making a public performance of it, which opens up all kinds of fascinating possibilities here.”

The Trump campaign did not make any alterations to the mugshot, so he cannot claim that he substantially altered it from its original in a way to create something new, MSNBC’s Dean Obeidallah said.

Since the campaign is profiting off the image, it also cannot claim fair use, Obeidallah added.
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