Left: British reggae musician Eddy Grant, performing during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland in 2008, sued Trump over the use of his 1980s hit Electric Avenue in a Trump campaign animated video that mocked Joe Biden. (AP Photo/KEYSTONE/Jean-Christophe Bott, File). Right: Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump waves as he departs a campaign event at Central Wisconsin Airport on Sept. 7, 2024 (AP Photo/Morry Gash).
As Jack White and the estate of Isaac Hayes continue their music-related lawsuits against the Trump campaign, British singer Eddy Grant of “Electric Avenue” fame now has a path forward for collecting copyright infringement damages.
U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl sided Friday in the Southern District of New York in favor of Grant’s motion for partial summary judgment, handing the musician a pretrial win by finding Trump and the Trump campaign liable for posting a 55-second animated clip on Trump’s then Twitter account mocking Joe Biden on Aug. 12, 2020, months before Biden was elected president. Here’s how the Trump post appears currently:
When Grant sued in September 2020, the complaint described the video as containing a “visual depiction of a red train” moving swiftly through a snowy townscape and “bearing the words ‘Trump Pence KAG 2020’ and a handcar bearing the words ‘Biden President: Your Hair Smells Terrific’ being powered by an animated likeness of Former Vice President Biden.”
After the train roared through the town, “Electric Avenue” played alongside an assortment of embarrassing Biden audio clips as the cartoon rendering of him manually pumped the handcar.
Grant, who said he wrote, recorded, and produced the song in response to the 1981 Brixton riots in London, claimed that the post ran afoul of copyright. He also said publicly that the unauthorized use of the song for campaign purposes was a “sordid abuse.”
“I call upon such arbiter, as is responsible for this sordid abuse, to come forward like a man and let’s sort this thing out, in the way that America demands when such issues are to be sorted, especially when they are wrong,” Grant said. “Mr. Trump, I am calling on you. You are the final arbiter and I await the word from you.”
Depositions of Trump and his social media director Dan Scavino followed, shedding light on the origins of the video at issue.
According to the judge, Scavino testified that he saw the video on a Trump supporter’s account and that he spoke with Trump before posting it. Trump himself, as the judge put it, testified that the video was “taken from the internet” and then posted online.
“Scavino testified that he saw the Video on a Trump supporter’s social media page either on the same day or the day before he posted the Tweet. Scavino also testified that he spoke with former President Trump before posting the Tweet and that former President Trump ‘let [him] go with [his] instinct on it and post it,”” the judge recounted. “Former President Trump testified that the Video was taken from the internet and posted on Twitter.”
For Koeltl, there’s “no dispute that the composition and the sound recording of the musical performance for ‘Electric Avenue’ were used without permission and that the Composition was copyrighted,” but there was a question about whether Trump’s “fair use” argument held water — and it didn’t.
“In this case, the Video has a very low degree of ‘transformativeness,’ if any at all,” the judge wrote. “As this Court found in denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss, the Video ‘is best described as a wholesale copying of music to accompany a political campaign ad.’”
The video had “no discernible role in communicating the video’s overarching political commentary” and the Trump defendants “provide no evidence of public benefit” to the use of the song,” the judge added, agreeing that Grant has an interest in deterring other “would-be infringers” from “widespread, uncompensated use” of his music in “promotional videos,” no matter what those videos are promoting.
Koeltl concluded that each “fair use” factor favored Grant.
“The plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment dismissing the defendants’ ‘fair use’ defense is granted, and the plaintiffs are entitled to judgment on liability,” he wrote.
Read the judge’s ruling here.
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
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