Legal experts have cautioned that Donald Trump’s campaign may have violated United States copyright law by selling merchandise bearing the visage of the previous president.

The Republican presidential candidate quickly grasped the opportunity to use the photograph of the former president taken at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, which prominently featured the ex-president wearing a disapproving expression while facing the camera.

Merchandise bearing the iconic photograph and the rallying cry “Never surrender” was swiftly marketed at prices ranging between $12 and $34.

In just three days, the Trump campaign generated a significant revenue of $7,1 million from the sale of merchandise such as T-shirts, flasks, koozies, and bumper decals.

According to legal experts, the funds in issue may legitimately belong to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, which took the photograph. This assertion is founded on the provisions of U.S. copyright law, which establish that the law enforcement agency responsible for obtaining a photograph owns 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.

Betsy Rosenblatt, a law professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, asserts that individuals’ actions involving such images are restricted.

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

“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.”

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

According to Dean Obeidallah of MSNBC, the mugshot used by the Trump campaign was not modified in any manner, so preventing any claim of major alteration resulting in the creation of something new.

According to Obeidallah, the campaign’s inability to claim fair use is due to its exploitation of the picture for financial gain. CONTINUE READING…