The Trump campaign may have violated United State copyright law by selling merchandise featuring the former president’s mugshot, legal experts have warned.
The Trump campaign may have violated United State copyright law by selling merchandise featuring the former president’s mugshot, legal experts have warned.
‘Fair use’ is a thing. It varies by country, and I’m not certain on where the US falls.
Selling copies on merchandise would definitely not be fair use.
Using it in news articles may be fair use under some circumstances, but probably only if you were commenting specifically on the mugshot.
News articles can use media for ‘editorial’ purposes which has a slightly different usage rights subset to ‘commercial’ purposes which tend to be much more tied down. Having said that, I would have thought that seeing it’s his own mugshot and that it wasn’t taken by professional creative photographer and that it was forced upon him and released to the public domain, that he would be entitled to use it as he sees fit. It’s a picture of himself after all.
This almost feels like he’s being picked on because he’s so widely hated and that many people want to see him burn.
As far as I see, the mugshot is being used all over the place, not just for illustration as you describe. It’s become too iconic/memetic…