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ancianita

(35,812 posts)
Sat Nov 14, 2020, 05:37 PM Nov 2020

Eddie Grant sues the half-assed Trump campaign for using "Electric Avenue" without permission

"Donald Trump Argues That Use Of 'Electric Avenue' In Campaign Video Was Transformative"

rather than running on his own record, the Trump Campaign mostly went 100% negative, filling the digital space with all kinds of hits on Biden.

One of those was a crudely put together video that showed a Trump/Pence train zipping by on some tracks, with a Biden hand-car chugging behind him. On the Biden train car were fun references to smelling hair and other childish digs. Some clips of Biden speaking made up the audio for the spot, along with the hit song from 1983 "Electric Avenue." Tweeted out on Trump's personal Twitter account, it turns out that nobody had licensed the song for the video, leading Eddy Grant to sue the President...

... the claims about the other two factors in considering fair use -- the nature of the copyrighted work and the portion of the work used -- don't sound particularly convincing. The motion says that the video only used 17% of the song in the video, or forty seconds of the song in total. Again, true, except that the video itself is something like 50 seconds long, so the copyrighted work is playing for nearly the entire video. And it's played prominently.


The f'n irony of it all! Cheating artists at his rallies and on Twitter. Don't piss off Eddie Grant, bloody donnie!

More commentary on the Trump argument: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201113/10143845704/donald-trump-argues-that-use-electric-avenue-campaign-video-was-transformative.shtml
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Eddie Grant sues the half-assed Trump campaign for using "Electric Avenue" without permission (Original Post) ancianita Nov 2020 OP
Good. nt SunSeeker Nov 2020 #1
Pay up Donald, you fat piece of shit Blue Owl Nov 2020 #2
Good SheltieLover Nov 2020 #3
... ancianita Nov 2020 #4
Sounds good to me! SheltieLover Nov 2020 #5

ancianita

(35,812 posts)
4. ...
Sat Nov 14, 2020, 05:59 PM
Nov 2020

I hear ya, but I like better the idea of individual higher punitive damages, tho', cuz class action plaintiff qualifications are tricky.

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