A federal judge has ruled against former President Donald Trump in a case that was brought after he used a popular song in a video during his 2020 presidential campaign without the permission of the artist.
Trump’s Twitter account posted a 55-second video on Aug. 12, 2020, that contained the song for 40 seconds. The video featured a Trump train and clips of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. Grant asked the Trump campaign to take down the post, but they did not, so he sued the campaign and Trump.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the video met the Copyright Act exception of transformative use, or using it in a different way or for a different purpose, but Koeltl disagreed.
“The video has a very low degree of ’transformativeness,' if any at all,” Koeltl said.
“The video’s creator did not edit the song’s lyrics, vocals, or instrumentals at all, and the song is immediately recognizable when it begins playing around the fifteen-second mark of the video, notwithstanding that audio of President Biden’s speech can be heard simultaneously,” the judge added later. “Moreover, the animation does not use Electric Avenue as a vehicle to deliver its satirical message, and it makes no effort to poke fun at the song or Grant.”
Trump and his campaign used Grant’s song without paying a licensing fee despite the work being copyrighted, the judge found. If allowed to stand, then the option of using the song without giving compensation would undercut Grant’s ability to make money from the recording, he said.
The video was viewed more than 13.7 million times, before Twitter, now known as X, took it down.
Dan Scavino, a Trump aide, testified in the case that he posted the video after asking Trump whether he should post it. Trump testified that the video came from the internet and was posted on Twitter.
The ruling also denied a cross-motion from Trump and his campaign that said Grant and other plaintiffs did not register the song, but the judge said the song was copyrighted when London Records registered the album “Eddy Grant: the Greatest Hits,” which contains the “Electric Avenue” song.
Under court precedent, registrations of compilations may be sufficient to constitute copyrighting of the songs in the compilation, the judge said. He said that was the case for the Grant compilation.
Lawyers for Grant and Trump did not respond to requests for comment.
