President-elect Donald Trump and Guyanese-British artist Eddy Grant reached a settlement in a copyright case over the unapproved use of the 1984 hit funk tune Electric Avenue after a protracted legal struggle.
A 55-second animated movie ridiculed Joe Biden on Trump’s then-Twitter account in August 2020, just months before Biden was elected president. The movie shows a cartoon Biden pushing the handcar of a slow-moving train through a town shrouded in snow. The well-known song serves as the non-diegetic soundtrack while Biden’s embarrassing video snippets play in the background.
Grant filed a lawsuit against Trump and his campaign for copyright infringement in the Southern District of New York in September 2020.
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, Grantsaid at the time he filed the lawsuit. I’m calling on you, Mr. Trump. I’m waiting for your response because you are the ultimate arbiter.
After more than four years, the word was eventually released.
According to U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl’s order on Wednesday, “As it has been reported to this Court that the parties have settled this action, it is hereby ordered that this matter be discontinued with prejudice but without costs; provided, however, that within 30 days of the date of this order, counsel for the plaintiff may apply by letter for restoration of the action.”
The terms of the agreement were not made public, as is sometimes the case with settlements agreed between parties.
In a statement given to the Reuters wire service on Thursday, Grant’s lawyer, Brian Caplan, a partner at the New York City-based legal firm Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt, said the dispute had been settled to the satisfaction of both sides.
It has been a lengthy and winding legal struggle between the 45th and 47th presidents and the co-founding member of the Equals, who are well-known for their ska-influenced rock ‘n’ roll single, Baby, Come Back.
The video, which used Electric Avenue, a discordantly happy song with lyrics lamenting the racial unrest and police brutality from the 1981 Brixton riots in London, was shared, but Trump and his campaign denied creating it.
The lawsuit also proceeded slowly. In 2022, the plaintiff’s strategy finally paid off in the form of discovery.
A musician from Electric Avenue is attempting to remove the social media director for the Trump campaign for utilizing their song in an advertisement that made fun of Joe Biden.
The video’s origins would be revealed through the depositions of Trump and Dan Scavino, his social media director.
However, the legal battle would continue for years with orders, motions, counsel being switched out, and one court reassignment.
The court summarized many of the case’s circumstances in an order it issued in September, giving Grant summary judgment.
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. According to testimony given by former President Trump, the video was stolen off the internet and shared on Twitter.
As Koeltl saw it, there was simply 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. The only real question was whether Trump had a fair use defense.
That question was answered in the negative.
In this case, the Video has a very low degree of transformativeness, if any at all, the judge wrote citing one of the legal standards for fair use in copyright law. 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.’
All that remained after the court ruled in Grant s favor on the motion for summary judgment was the matter of damages.
Now, the once-and-future president has come to agree with the anti-apartheid singer-songwriter about the work to be done.
In his order, Koeltl advised both sides to act quickly if they wanted to keep any aspect of the lawsuit in the court system.
[I]f the parties wish for the Court to retain jurisdiction for the purpose of enforcing any settlement agreement, they must submit the settlement agreement to the Court within the same thirty-day period to be so-ordered by the Court, the order goes on. Unless the Court orders otherwise, the Court will not retain jurisdiction to enforce a settlement agreement unless it is made part of the public record. All pending motions are dismissed as moot. All conferences are canceled. The Clerk of Court is directed to close this case.
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