Photographer Successfully DMCAs Trump Jr.'s Skittles Image

from the copyright-and-politics dept

So, just last week, we wrote about how David Kittos, a refugee from Cyprus now living in the UK, had taken the photograph of a bowl of Skittles that Donald Trump Jr. had used in a tweet about banning refugees. Kittos said he was thinking about taking legal action, but said he wasn't sure he had the patience for it. But, of course, thanks to US copyright law, if you want something to disappear, you don't have to go through a whole litigation process, you can just use the DMCA. And that's exactly what David Kittos did (first noticed by The Washington Post, which may have a paywall).

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== Description of original work: Photography of a bowl of Skittles from my flickr library which was copied WITHOUT my permssion

== Links to original work: https://www.flickr.com/photos/david_kittos/[REDACTED]/

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== Reported Tweet URL: https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/[REDACTED][REDACTED]

== Description of infringement: The image of a bowl of skittles is mine and has always been set as "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" in my flickr library It was copied and is being used WITHOUT my permission. I have never been contacted by Donald Trump Jr or any representative about the image, before of after it was used in the Tweet.

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And it worked: Now, of course, there's a question of whether or not Trump Jr. will file a counternotice, and then if Kittos would actually follow through with a lawsuit. I'm guessing neither will happen, but who really knows? There's a possible, but not really that strong, argument that Trump Jr.'s usage was fair use. And it does seem like Kittos' takedown is much more about his objection to the speech, rather than the possible infringement -- and, once again, that suggests it's another example of using copyright to censor speech someone doesn't like. As I made clear, I think the Skittles analogy is incredibly stupid (and racist), but that doesn't mean I'm comfortable with using copyright to silence it.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, david kittos, dmca, donald trump jr., fair use, skittles, takedwon
Companies: twitter