In today's CMU Daily: Eddy Grant has succeeded in his copyright lawsuit against Donald Trump, in doing so demonstrating that using music in political campaign videos does not qualify as fair use, so a licence must be secured. Trump posted a video using ‘Electric Avenue’ during the 2020 US presidential election campaign

One Liners: Latest releases from Arca, Playboi Carti, Lamb Of God, brent, Special Interest, Troye Sivan, Jack White, Doechii, Ben Howard + more

Also today: IP expert Daniel Gervais has proposed reforming copyright law to add a new remuneration right for creators whose work is used to train generative AI models; Spotify is piloting new tools in three markets that allow parents to control managed accounts for their children within a family plan, so they can exclude certain content, artists and tracks

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Trump campaign guilty of copyright infringement in Eddy Grant lawsuit

A New York judge has ruled that Donald Trump’s election campaign committed copyright infringement when it used Eddy Grant’s ‘Electric Avenue’ without permission in a video posted online in 2020.

In his ruling, Judge John G Koeltl demolishes arguments from the Trump campaign that use of the track was ‘fair use’ under American copyright law, which would mean no permission was required. The Trump campaign said that the video was covered by fair use because it “transformed Grant’s original conception of ‘Electric Avenue’ as a protest against social conditions into a colorful attack on the character and personality traits of a rival political figure”.

Koeltl examines the four pillars of the fair use defence - and gives detailed reasons for why the Trump campaign’s use of Grant’s music in the video is not, in fact, fair use. Which is important, because it seemed likely Trump would try to use the same defence in the new lawsuit over the use of The White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army’ in a more recent campaign video.

Trump specifically claimed that his use of ‘Electric Avenue’ was transformative and constituted parody or satire. But, Judge John G Koeltl, concludes, “The video’s creator did not edit the song’s lyrics, vocals or instrumentals at all, and the song is immediately recognisable when it begins playing”. And as for satire claims, “the animation does not use ‘Electric Avenue’ as a vehicle to deliver its satirical message, and it makes no effort to poke fun at the song or Grant”.

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New generative AI remuneration right for creators proposed

A white paper published by CIAM and the Fair Trade Music programme has set out proposals for a new remuneration right that would see creators earn royalties when generative AI models have been trained with their work.

The paper has been written by Professor Daniel Gervais, who is director of the intellectual property programme at Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville.

Illustrating how the new right would work in practice, the white paper explains, “when a music streaming service filled a stream with AI-produced music, it would pay for the use of the copyrighted works in the dataset used by its generative AI model”.

That payment would be in addition to any income generated by licensing deals negotiated by copyright owners at the point the AI model was trained.

Spotify pilots new tools so parents can control how their kids experience the app

Spotify has introduced new tools that allow parents to set up and manage an account for children under the age of thirteen, setting parameters for what content the children will get access to. While only currently available in Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden, it seems likely that, after a pilot, the new controls will be rolled out around the world.

Unlike the existing Spotify Kids app that is already available in fourteen countries, which removes content deemed unsuitable for children, the new tools give parents more control over what their kids have access to via the Spotify app.

“As young listeners embark on a journey of music exploration”, the streaming service says, parents can use the new features so that kids “will get to enjoy many of the features and functionality that Spotify users know and love, including personalisation features that make music discovery on Spotify so exciting and unique”.

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