Trump has raised millions with his mug shot. Legal experts say it could be a big mistake
Trump has raised millions with his mug shot. Legal experts say it could be a big mistake
His campaign turned the defining image into a souvenir. It’s unclear who actually owns it, Alex Woodward reports
Guy A Rub, a copyright law professor at Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, says that the former president could face legal consequences for using the mug shot without the express authorisation from authorities to do so.
“The copyright in the shot obviously does not belong to Trump. Generally, copyright belongs to whoever took the picture of its organisation. In this case, it is probably the sheriff’s office or the state,” Mr Rub told The Independent.
Federal law does not allow the federal government to own a copyright for booking photos, effectively leaving them to the public domain. But that is not necessarily the case at the state and local level, where using such images can be subject to fair use limitations.
“If the Sheriff’s office (or the state) wants to enforce the copyright in the image, it can probably do it,” Mr Rub added. “Copyright infringement can entail various sanctions, including the profits that the infringer, meaning the Trump campaign, gained as a result of the infringement.”
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Feels like mugshots should be public domain. Not necessarily freely-shared, but definitely shouldn't be available for anyone to claim copyright over. That or the government retains copyright with a strict prohibition on using any mugshots for commercial purposes.
It would feel really weird if a state government started selling Tshirts with people's mugshots on them.
It would incentivize law enforcement to arrest famous people if anything.
That is the best argument for the government copyrighting mugshots
"Big gubmint tryna steal mah mug!"