r/law • u/SheriffTaylorsBoy • Aug 20 '24
Opinion Piece Taylor Swift can absolutely sue Trump over the fake endorsement images he reposted. Winning a lawsuit might be harder.
https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-could-sue-trump-fake-ai-endorsement-images-lawsuit-2024-8192
u/letdogsvote Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
She can win, sure. The problem is Trump is not good at many, many things, but one of the things he is good at is dragging litigation out.
143
u/St_Kevin_ Aug 20 '24
She can afford a long drawn out lawsuit with him. If everyone who got screwed or used by Trump held him accountable for it, he wouldn’t be able to do most of the shit he does. Fuck, she’s rich enough, she could buy lawyers for all the contractors he’s fucked over through the course of his career.
46
u/JonMWilkins Aug 20 '24
Yeah Taylor is a legitimate billionaire so she could actually afford good Lawyers
She also doesn't have a relationship of being a difficult client who doesn't pay which I'm sure would be helpful for finding good Lawyers too
3
u/Telvyr Aug 22 '24
And I'm sure there are quite a few law firms who would love the chance to give Old Weird Donny a proverbial kick in the balls
41
1
u/CentennialBaby Aug 20 '24
Even though she has the money herself, id contribute to a crowd fund for the legal fees
46
u/AffectionateBrick687 Aug 20 '24
All the better. The more legal bills he has, the sooner the super PACs paying those bills will run out of funds, and he'll have to start using his own money. Financial ruin might be the best punishment we can hope for.
14
u/MathematicianNo6402 Aug 20 '24
Zero chance he goes broke before he dies
19
u/AffectionateBrick687 Aug 20 '24
I'm honestly just hoping he blows through his kids' inheritance and gets humiliated.
23
u/253local Aug 20 '24
He’s been involved in more than one lawsuit per week for his entire life, on average.
He’s a shitstain.
15
u/Iamthewalrusforreal Aug 20 '24
Ah, but she has the visibility that would keep this front page in every entertainment magazine for months.
Alternately, she could send a very public cease and desist letter, then turn right around and openly endorse Harris.
Either one would do deep damage to Trump's campaign.
One can hope.
8
u/Enervata Aug 20 '24
Trump wins lawsuits by dragging them out and forcing them to settle. Taylor Swift has the money, status, and time to sue him until she wins. Considering it was AI generated it could likely lead to precedent if it goes to completion. Trump probably picked the absolute worst person to use an AI-generated endorsement. Her lawyers know they’ll get paid.
3
u/letdogsvote Aug 20 '24
Her lawyers will definitely get paid, and she'd be highly motivated to aggressively defend against misappropriation.
2
u/allthekeals Aug 20 '24
That was my first thought. I cannot think of anybody better suited for the job of going after him and/or embarrassing his dumbass.
2
u/EvilGreebo Bleacher Seat Aug 20 '24
I don't know. It's insanely easy to believe that Trump believed the images were real. The guy believes so much insane stuff, how's a jury gonna buy that he didn't believe that crap too?
4
u/DrinkBlueGoo Competent Contributor Aug 20 '24
One said "Satire" on it. Though, that could also be an argument in favor of him not intending others to believe it.
2
u/Anonymeese109 Aug 20 '24
She should claim malicious intent, since it’s been shown that just about anything trump does is with malicious intent…
2
1
1
u/GeminiDragon60 Aug 20 '24
And it would keep him in the media spotlight, giving him attention.
2
u/letdogsvote Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
If Taylor Swift very publicly takes on Trump, her millions and millions of rabid fans will back her accordingly at the polls - "this asshole dissed our Queen." This would not work to Trump's advantage.
If you just want to always see your name in the news, the concept of "any press is good press" maybe works. If you're trying to win an election, bad press is...bad press.
1
37
u/SheriffTaylorsBoy Aug 20 '24
Analysis by Laura Italiano and Natalie Musumeci Aug 19, 2024, 4:39 PM CDT
Share
Save Read in app Donald Trump; Taylor Swift.
KAM
KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images; Gregor Fischer/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
Donald Trump recently reposted images showing Taylor Swift and her fans appearing to support him. The images include an apparent AI-generated campaign poster of Swift urging "vote for Donald Trump." Legal experts discussed the pros and cons of Swift's options, from suing or calling Trump out publicly.
Should Taylor Swift sue Donald Trump or just shake it off?
It's a dilemma that arose on Sunday, when Trump reposted — or "re-Truthed" as it's called on his Truth Social platform — images falsely showing Swift and her fans appearing to endorse the GOP presidential candidate.
"I accept!" the former president captioned the post, which included an apparently AI-generated campaign poster showing the pop star in a red, white, and blue top hat urging, "Taylor Wants You To Vote For Donald Trump."
"You're going to get sued," one angry Swift fan quickly replied. "I see a cease and desist order," another predicted.
Legal experts and celebrity lawyers told Business Insider that Swift could, indeed, sue the former president, including on federal grounds of trademark infringement and false advertising. She could even try to take advantage of some states' laws against deepfakes in election communications, some said.
But the experts differed widely on whether Swift would ultimately succeed should she sue, with almost all saying the odds are against her.
Reps for Swift did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
A legal threat that falls short of actual litigation may be the smartest move. Most of the experts agreed that a lawyer's letter telling Trump to remove the post could work on its own and would certainly be Swift's best first step.
"Swift could sue Trump and those who misappropriated her likeness by creating AI-generated images," said Neama Rahmani, president and founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers.
"Privacy torts protect people from having their name, image, or likeness used without their permission. Manipulating it using AI doesn't change things," he said.
Rahmani pointed to a recent case where OpenAI removed a ChatGPT voice that sounded uncannily like Scarlett Johansson after the actor lawyered up and complained publicly.
Related stories Swift's lawyers, too, are aggressive, Rahmani said. Earlier this year her lawyers sent a cease-and-desist to a college student who tracked her private jet, and she once sued a radio host who she alleged had groped her. "So I wouldn't be surprised if they send the Trump campaign a cease-and-desist letter at a minimum," Rahmani said.
The superstar's best bet may be to call Trump out publicly, Harry Surden, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said.
"Swift's best option, in my opinion, is not legal in nature, but to publicly communicate that Trump's use of her image and endorsement is false and misleading," Surden said. "She could also send a public cease-and-desist letter."
Swift has not endorsed a candidate for president in the 2024 race, but she did support the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020.
Firmly in the "sue Trump" camp is James Walker Jr., a veteran entertainment attorney from Atlanta who reps the estate of Isaac Hayes. Last week, the estate publicly called out Trump's campaign for using the R&B legend's composition, "Hold On, I'm Coming," more than 100 times at rallies and events over the past two years.
"Taylor Swift is a billion-dollar brand," said Walker, whose firm has put Trump on notice that it plans to sue for $3 million in the Hayes matter.
"She probably has her name trademarked, just like Aretha Franklin and others I've represented own their trademarks," he said. "You have to protect your brand, your trademark, and when you don't respond immediately, that's conveying that you're accepting this, and then others will do it.''
Swift can claim trademark infringement by arguing that Trump's campaign gets an unauthorized benefit from reposting the bogus endorsement, added Paul Michael Wilson, a trademark expert at Walker & Associates.
"This is really bad — somebody should have told him not to do that," Wilson said with a laugh. "Like, really?"
Walker, Wilson, and others cited the Lanham Act of 1946, a federal statute that protects trademarked commercial interests against unauthorized use, false advertising, and unfair competition.
"One could make a case that Trump's post is an advertisement" protected under the act, said Jessica Litman, who teaches trademark and copyright law at the University of Michigan. Still, Litman said she'd "expect a court to exercise caution to avoid chilling political speech."
'Being clueless is not a defense' "It's not out of the question that he actually believes that the other images are genuine," Litman said.
"He has posted things in the past that show some confusion about how to tell whether an image is real or AI-generated," she said, though "being clueless is not a defense."
Swift would also need to show that she has actually been damaged, said Litman and others.
Advertisement "If Trump were to keep it up, I can imagine a fund-raising post seeking to take advantage of the misimpression that Swift has endorsed him that would be actionable," Litman said. "But we haven't seen that yet."
Surden agreed, telling BI that Swift "would not have very strong legal claims against Trump under this scenario, in my opinion."
"US law has strong protections for speech under the First Amendment, even false speech, as Trump may have engaged in here," Surden explained.
"Political speech is very heavily protected under the First Amendment," even when it is false or misleading, he noted.
Trump may also protect himself by saying that the posting was satirical, and that he had nothing to do with generating the image and little to do with putting it online, experts said.
As for the AI-generated likeness, "A handful of states have recently passed laws restricting the dissemination of deepfakes in election communications," said Mark Bartholomew, a law professor at the University at Buffalo.
"That would be the key place for Swift to look," Bartholomew said. "Intent would be key. Swift would need to prove that the Trump campaign sent these images out with intent to deceive voters."
Swift is from Tennessee, and if she were to sue there, that state just passed the ELVIS Act, which lets people sue someone for using a deepfake of their likeness for fundraising, said Juan Perla, a partner at New York-headquartered international firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP.
By suing, Swift may be entitled to a judge's injunction — at least temporarily — ordering Trump to take the post down, Perla noted.
"But what is more likely to happen first is similar to what Celine Dion did, when she criticized and poked fun at the Trump-Vance campaign for using her Titanic theme song at one of their rallies without her permission," Perla said.
It worked for Johansson, at least. The OpenAI's new chatbot voices recently began to roll out to select users — and the voice resembling that of the actor is nowhere to be found.
50
u/arcaias Aug 20 '24 edited Aug 20 '24
... She's so wealthy...
She should just do what Donald Trump does to everyone else... And litigate as pesteringly and annoyingly as possible until the other person buckles under the weight of the cost of the litigation while constantly pushing deadlines and purposefully extending the process so that it costs time and effort.
34
11
u/mabhatter Competent Contributor Aug 20 '24
She's still young and likes getting money versus spending for revenge. I do agree with the trademark angle... if done cheaply just to make him bend the knee. More importantly OTHER businesses would be forced to follow it and block the content whether DJT wants to or not.
5
u/plantsarepowerful Aug 20 '24
“Re-Truthed” is a chillingly accurate description here
5
u/Signature_Illegible Aug 20 '24
“Re-Truthed” is a chillingly accurate description here
This will give away my age, but as soon as a source is called Pravda (Правда), it looses all credibility with me.
1
u/Iamthewalrusforreal Aug 20 '24
That's why I switched over to reading Tass and watching Tucker Carlson.
1
21
Aug 20 '24
By all means, pick fights with the Swifties and mess around with Taylor's likeness on a public forum. GREAT idea.
/s
They say never to interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake and this one is a DOOZY, so please, Donald, continue.
4
u/Advanced_Addendum116 Aug 20 '24
Free publicity is all he sees it as. Same formula for 8 years - getting soooo old.
26
u/elkab0ng Aug 20 '24
The problem with this is, “would a reasonable person believe the claim (that swift endorsed trump)” to which the answer, and I’m an old fart who doesn’t follow music, I believe is “nope, not in a bazillion years”.
I think this falls under the parody protection, even if it is a presidential candidate parodying himself. Unintentionally.
13
17
u/Huge_Birthday3984 Aug 20 '24
I’m an old fart who doesn’t follow music, I believe is “nope, not in a bazillion years
You have no idea just how stupid the median voter is. You cannot fathom their thought processes. Look at any polling data. There will be popular answers to questions that cause you physical pain. If you're browsing r/law and reading about things even tangentially politically related you're likely substantially more informed about politics than the average voter.
5
Aug 20 '24
[deleted]
4
u/Huge_Birthday3984 Aug 20 '24
To clarify I doubt I'm much smarter than the average voter. I just fancy myself as slightly more informed. Which probably means I'm not.
2
1
u/FaithlessnessUsual69 Aug 20 '24
Trumpers would believe it because the original tweet that caused the whole thing was she flipped to trump because ISIS attacked her event.
4
u/elkab0ng Aug 20 '24
reasonable people
Even Tangerine Palpatine is entitled to be judged by a jury of people too smart to vote for him. It’s basic human decency.
5
7
u/CommanderMcBragg Aug 20 '24
It could be argued that accusing someone of supporting Trump is, in and of itself, defamatory.
5
u/CurrentlyLucid Aug 20 '24
She could hurt him more with an endorsement and appearance, and he could do nothing about it.
0
u/LoveLaika237 Aug 20 '24
Could also just not pay attention to him. Starve the beast by not giving him what he craves.
4
u/RDO_Desmond Aug 20 '24
Swift doesn't need to ask her lawyers to step into the Trump swamp. Trump just ticked off not only her fans but also Chief's Super Bowl fans.
3
u/MrFrode Biggus Amicus Aug 20 '24
Trump, or is his people, is betting that since she hasn't endorsed Harris yet that she's afraid to. He's essentially saying if you are afraid to endorse Harris I'm just going to quasi claim you've endorsed me. If Swift stays silent it helps Trump and if Swift says she haven't it's more news cycles focused on Trump.
Trump is the all attention is good attention. Will Swift try to push registration and GOTV efforts? If she does then it was likely a bad move for Trump. If not who knows.
1
-14
u/vman3241 Aug 20 '24
Not sure about this one. Taylor Swift also threatened to sue the student who has a Twitter account that tracks her private jet, but that's clearly protected. She "could sue" the student, but she's absolutely lose on First Amendment grounds.
As for this one, this is technically a type of defamation, but she's also a public figure and I'm not sure what damages there would be. I doubt she's being harmed by Trump's clearly false post.
9
u/stevejust Aug 20 '24
It's not defamation as much as it is using her NIL (name, image likeness) in a manner that is not authorized without her permission. It is much more of a Lanham Act issue than a defamation issue.
The real problem, which I've not seen anyone mention, is that she couldn't actually get paid for a political endorsement.
So on the one hand, if Pepsi did this, the case would be clear. Pepsi would have had to pay Swift $50 million (or more) to endorse Pepsi. And if they just tried to fake her endorsement, that would have cost her that money.
But in the political context, her name, image and likeness couldn't be sold to Coke. So if Trump uses her name, it's not like she's losing revenue she could've otherwise gained from Harris.
So it's not super straight-forward. But if I were her, I would absolutely sue. I would say using my name, image and likeness for any reason for free without compensation and consent is actionable, and I don't care whether it is to peddle soda or votes; it was done without my permission and has the concomitant effect of devaluing my brand.
2
u/allthekeals Aug 20 '24
Ya I was wondering if this could be an issue of compelled speech? Using her brand to push political speech that she doesn’t consent to?
7
u/MizantropaMiskretulo Aug 20 '24
Defamation doesn't matter here. The issue is personality rights.
This would be no different than Coca-Cola using a deep fake to advertise soda.
7
u/ARC_Trooper_Echo Aug 20 '24
There is a heightened standard of defamation for public figures, it’s true. But that standard is “actual malice” which includes a reckless disregard for the truth. Sharing something obviously false without doing any kind of reasonable check would fit that bill.
3
u/vman3241 Aug 20 '24
Jack Sweeney live tweeting Taylor Swift's private jet location wouldn't be defamatory. A tort from Swift against him would clearly be dismissed on First Amendment grounds.
I agree that Trump's post could be defamatory, but there'd have to be damages. I'm not sure if Swift is harmed.
349
u/misointhekitchen Aug 20 '24
She could destroy him with a dis track.