The tricky legal question at the center of the Trump mugshot cash grab (MSNBClink): Donald Trump surrendered to authorities in Georgia last week and had his mug shot taken by the Fulton County sheriff. He wasted no time in turning that photo into a massive moneymaker.
While there has been no official report on how much the sale of these items has brought in, Politico reported last week that the campaign had raised north of $7 million since the mug shot’s release, “powered” by the sales of merchandise “bearing Trump’s scowling mugshot.”
As a general principle, the owner of a photo’s copyright is the person (or entity) who takes that photo, not its subject. In federal criminal cases, the U.S. government is not permitted to own the copyright to booking photos, so they are considered in the public domain.
Betsy Rosenblatt, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, recently explained to Spectrum News 1 Ohio that the copyright owner of Trump’s mug shot is likely the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.
Other legal experts support that interpretation, including a 2022 article in the University of Georgia School of Law’s Journal of Intellectual Property Law that noted, “In the context of photographs taken by law enforcement during the booking process, the author of the mugshot photograph is the law enforcement agency.”
Mod: Additional muggery at the link. There is also this if you want:
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