Twitter Deletes Trump’s Photo of Himself After NY Times Copyright Complaint
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Another one of Donald Trump’s tweets has run afoul of copyright laws.
On Wednesday, Twitter pulled down a photo Trump posted of himself included in a June 30 tweet, after the New York Times Co. filed a DMCA takedown request reporting the president’s post as infringing its copyright.
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“Media not displayed: This image has been removed in response to a report from the copyright holder,” a message in Trump’s tweet now reads.
The black-and-white photo portrays a squinting Trump pointing his right index finger at the camera. The photo, by Times staff photographer Damon Winter, accompanied an October 2015 profile of Trump in the New York Times Magazine penned by Mark Leibovich about the ex-reality TV star’s political ambitions.
The New York Times filed the DMCA takedown notice July 1, according to a notice in the Lumen database, which is operated by Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Twitter’s removal of the Trump tweet was first reported by Axios.
Trump’s copyright-violating tweet had been retweeted more than 100,000 times and received more than 333,000 likes.
As of this writing, the president’s same post with the Times photo remains available on Facebook. (The Lumen database does not show a DMCA takedown notice filed with Facebook by the New York Times.) The photo includes the text, “In reality they’re not after me they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
It’s the third time in the past month that Twitter has removed content tweeted by Trump or his campaign over copyright-infringement complaints. Two weeks ago, Twitter (and Facebook) deleted a video Trump shared that was faked to appear as if it had aired on CNN after a copyright-infringement claim from the original owner of the video; the doctored video was created by pro-Trump meme creator Carpe Donktum, whom Twitter subsequently banned for repeated copyright-infringement violations. And in early June, Twitter pulled a Trump 2020 campaign video, which included images and video footage of George Floyd as well as of protests and riots in the wake of Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police, following a DMCA takedown request from a rights holder of one of the images used.
Meanwhile, last year Twitter took down the president’s video that sampled Nickelback song “Photograph” after Warner Music Group complained and the service removed a Trump 2020 campaign video that used parts of the score for Warner Bros.’ Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Here’s the post by Trump with the New York Times photo as it appears on Facebook:
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