For a man who claims not to like Taylor Swift, Donald Trump’s latest merchandise sure has her look and feel all over it.
The Trump campaign has rolled out Swift-inspired merchandise after the superstar singer-songwriter endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president this week.
“Calling all Swifties for Trump,” reads an advertisement for the so-called “Trump Era” shirts on an X account identifying itself as the Trump campaign’s official account. The shirts, which closely resemble ones sold on Swift’s ongoing Eras Tour, were also listed on a merchandise page for the Trump campaign.
The Trump shirt features a black-and-white photo of the Republican nominee foregrounded against a colorful collage of more Trump pictures. The layout and color scheme of the design are unmistakably evocative of a design used on official Swift merchandise .
Representatives for Trump and Swift did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
On social media, Swift fans have been quick to bring up the possibility that Trump’s campaign is committing copyright infringement.
Taylor Swift fans take photos in front of her official merchandise during a stop on her Eras Tour in Warsaw, Poland, on July 31.
Dr. Ben Depoorter, a copyright scholar and distinguished law professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, said “there’s no slam dunk easy answer” to that claim, but that “the Trump campaign may get a cease and desist letter.” (It wouldn’t be the first such letter the campaign has ever gotten from a pop star.)
“As you can see, they take some parts of it but not all of it,” Depoorter told HuffPost on Friday. “But the core argument here, if you’re in Taylor Swift’s legal camp, is to say the look and feel is very similar.”
In explaining potential legal approaches, Depoorter said Swift’s team would likely argue the Trump shirt is an unauthorized derivative work that substantially copies parts of the original design without permission. Trump’s legal team, meanwhile, would likely try to claim that the design is fair use.
Swift endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in a social media post on Tuesday. Donald Trump, Harris' Republican opponent, later came out saying he's "not a fan" of the pop star.
“They may even argue that it’s a parody of Taylor Swift,” Depoorter said, though he added that that argument would be a difficult one to make.
“Parody is really well defined in case law, it’s about making fun of the original work,” he said. “So you have to have some criticism of the work, whereas here it’s more of they’re mocking kind of how Taylor Swift doesn’t like Trump and how he is making fun of that. But it’s not a criticism or reflection of the original work.”
Should a court determine that the case is a matter of copyright infringement, all profits derived from the sale of the shirts could be absolved, and there could be damages levied. If willful infringement is determined, the damages “can run up pretty high,” Depoorter said.
“I’d think you’d have a strong claim that this is a substantious, similar work that copies without permission,” he said.
But it’s by no means a sure thing that Swift’s team will actually bring a legal challenge against the campaign.
“We’re talking about a long litigation to determine this at the end of the day,” Depoorter said.
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