The MeidasTouch Podcast - Trump Could Face MASSIVE LAWSUIT for Mugshot COPYRIGHT VIOLATION

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on how Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could sue Donald Trump for copyright infringement for his commercialization of his mugshot.  Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 MAGA Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I'm Ben Micellis from the Midas Touch Network. Could the state of Georgia, or more specifically Fulton County, sue Donald Trump for violating the copyright held by Georgia or Fulton County in the mugshot of Donald Trump, where Donald Trump purports to have raised over $7 million from that ridiculous, absurd, and deranged mugshot? The answer is yes. Fulton County, Georgia could sue for a copyright infringement claim.

You see, unlike the federal government, states are actually permitted to maintain copyrights in works that are created by the state. There's some limitations, which I will discuss. But first, let's talk about what a copyright is in general and then let's talk about some of the rules of copyright law here so we could explain it so a copyright is defined as the exclusive legal right given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same. It is a fixed work of creative expression, and a copyright holder can bring lawsuits against other people who infringe upon that work. Now,

who usually owns the copyright of a photograph? Is it the photographer or is it the subject? Usually the photographer, the one taking the photograph, is presumed to be the owner. Now, somebody who is the subject of the photograph may have what's called a common law right of publicity in how that photograph is ultimately used, but as between the photographer and the subject, the photographer is the owner of the copyright. So here, Fulton County District Attorney, the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, Fulton County in general, is responsible for the taking of that photograph of Donald Trump. They technically would be the copyright owner. I'll explain some limitations in a moment. But with respect to the federal government, there is

long-held law regarding copyright that the federal government is not allowed to avail itself of copyright protection. Specifically, the United States Copyright Act says, copyright protection under the U.S. Copyright Act is not available for any work of the United States government, but the United States government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. So if somebody assigns a copyright to the United States government,

then the United States government could own that. But on its own, when the United States government or its employees create a work, it's owned by the people, it's public domain immediately. But that's not the case when it comes to states. Now, there is a case actually involving Georgia, which may be on point here. And this case is called Code of Revision Commission versus an organization called publicresource.org. This was a dispute that arose in 2013 where the Georgia State Legislature signed an exclusive deal with a company called LexisNexis

where LexisNexis would be responsible for publishing all of the Georgia laws, as well as the annotations to the Georgia laws, to help people guide their understanding of the various laws passed by the Georgia legislature historically and the present to learn about things like the history of a law, the different iterations of the bills that were basically passed, the overall legislative history. And so when this public organization, this nonprofit, this public resources group said, no, you don't own that LexisNexis and you can't copyright the law and its annotations, this case made its way all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, where the United States Supreme Court basically held, agreed with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned a federal district court,

and basically said, no, you can't copyright the laws, okay? And you can't copyright the annotations. That's for the people. But within this decision that was reached by the Supreme Court, here is ultimately what the Supreme Court said. The decision was like two or three years ago. And it basically says the following. The bar on copyright protection for federal works sweeps much more broadly than the government edicts doctrine does. That bar applies to works created by all federal officers or employees without regard for the nature of their position or scope of their authority. Whatever policy reasons might justify the federal government's decision to forfeit copyright protection for its own proprietary works, that federal rule does not suggest an intent to displace the much narrower government edicts doctrine with respect to the states. That doctrine does not apply to non-lawmaking officials leaving states free to assert copyright

in the vast majority of expressive works they produce, such as those created by their universities, libraries, tourism offices, and so on. This blew my mind when I found out, but did you know that over 80% of people have subscriptions that they've forgotten about? No, seriously, think about how many free trials you've subscribed to that you've probably never canceled. That's why I'm such a big fan of Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place. Most people think that they're spending $80 on their subscriptions,

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recommends custom budgets based on your past spending, and they'll even send you notifications when you've reached your spending limits. With over 3 million users and counting, Rocket Money customers have saved an average of $720 a year. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and manage your money the easy way by going to rocketmoney.com slash MidasTouch. That's rocketmoney.com slash Midas Touch. That's rocketmoney.com slash Midas Touch. So to me, that paragraph is the key one. And this is the United States Supreme Court decision,

because what the state of Georgia, here Fulton County would say, is that this doctrine of prohibiting copyrightability in the federal government does not apply to non-lawmaking officials. That's what would be here when it comes to Fulton County District Attorney and the Sheriff's Office, leaving the states free to assert the right in vast majority of expressive works they produce, such as those created by universities, libraries, tourism offices, and so on. I think Fulton County Sheriff's Department would say, and so on refers to us, the Fulton County Sheriff's Department. And we think that this is an expressive work that we create and we're entitled as the legitimate owners of all of the mugshots that we create, period. And while we, and this is what I think

the law would be, if Fulton County started selling mugshot shirts of Donald Trump, Trump could sue Fulton County for violating his right of publicity by affirmatively profiting off of it through consumerization of the products and the mugshot. That's not what Fulton County is doing. But I think similarly, Fulton County says, while Donald Trump, you may have a right to publicity over your own image, you don't have the copyright to the image that we took. So what would the damages be? We believe the damages would be the millions of dollars that you made in connection with selling the merch and selling, you know, the mugs and all of those things. Like you remember Donald Trump's out there. And I think this is a violation of the copyright by Fulton County.

Watch what Donald Trump does here. I mean, this is just really weird in general, but watch this. I just want to thank you for your tremendous support. And here it is. If you want to go out and get it, you can go out and get it. Have fun with it. But people do like it, I must say. Thank you very much.

So it's the photo of him surrendering. And it's a Never Surrender t-shirt with his mugshot. But for copyright damages, one of the things that Fulton County ever wanted to pursue this is to basically request a disgorgement. Donald Trump returned all of the money you've made by selling the image that you didn't own in furtherance of you being a criminal defendant. We own that product. So I think that's where it would be at. Now, what would be interesting as well is thinking about the opposite because could Donald Trump potentially bring legal action against certain other groups who you, we don't use the mugshot here in Midas Touch. I thought the photograph's disgusting.

So I don't want to put it on any mugs, to be honest. I don't want to put it on any t-shirts. We made that decision kind of right away. No interest in doing that, putting an abuser on a t-shirt. But I'm not going to fault groups if they think that that's part of their strategy. I just don't want to wear anything with Donald Trump's face on it. But could Donald Trump potentially bring an action against them under his right of publicity, potentially? And what would the argument be? The argument would be, well, it was newsworthy. You didn't own the copyright.

And even if you had a right of publicity, it was newsworthy. And the argument by Trump would be, well, you're just commercializing it. You're not using it to report the news like, say, we do here on the Midas Touch Network or other news networks do. That would be Trump's argument there in bringing a case against people who profit off of the image. But then the argument would be you don't even own the copyright, even though copyrightability and right of publicity are different things. We're just using it for its newsworthiness and how prevalent it's become. So those would ultimately be the arguments. But as you analyze copyright law, the most basic question is,

could Fulton County sue Donald Trump? What would the damages be? At least $7 to $10 million, because that's the amount that Donald Trump claims he raised off of it. And anything else that's kind of traceable to the violation of the copyright. Now, do I ultimately think Fulton County, Georgia is going to sue for the copyright? I mean, I think they're focused on the RICO case right now, but they have a statute of limitations. They have a pretty significant period of time before they can bring this case, that they don't have to make the decision tomorrow, but that's how you would analyze it. And this Supreme Court decision that I just read involving Georgia and the annotations,

Georgia v. Public Resources, or it was decided in the October 2019 term, that's going to be significant here. So lots of people have been asking me about that. I've seen other professors opine on it, but that's my own kind of analysis of it. Hit subscribe. We're on our way to 2 million subscribers. Have a great day. Oh, go to Patreon. Check out patreon.com slash MidasTouch. P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com slash MidasTouch. Have a great day. Hey, Midas Mighty. Love this report? Continue the conversation by following us on Instagram at MidasTouch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.