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Well, that's kind of what a cease and desist is. It says, in a formal but mostly polite way, "stop doing that or we'll become less nice".

The watch website says the final version may not look like the pictures. Also they don't have a production or delivery timeline and no promises of delivery.

Actually no, when you go to a professional photographer to have your picture taken, you pay for it. Because they put in the work and need to be compensated for it. By that logic people would never have to pay photographers for portraits, weddings, none of that. Just because you’re in a picture doesn’t mean you don’t owe a debt to the person who took it.

This would decimate the photography industry.

Yeah try getting copies of a copyrighted portrait made. Wedding photos, school portraits, you name it. Not yours.

Well yes and no.

A famus artist may sell a picture of theirs to a company, them RHAT company has the copyright, not you.

Lots of artists don't own their music, don't own their likeness either.

Agreed. Hate to be that person but I definitely agree with you. It's literally a picture of himself. I detest the man but this is dumb to be fair.

Sure, until you become a creative professional and you see someone with a lot more money than you making even more money off your work, and then you might instead say “fuck that guy”!

I've always believed that human subjects of photographs should have equal copy rights. Anyone can take your picture and then own that rendition of your face but you can't take a picture of the eiffel tower at night because you don't own the lights. Light bulbs have more rights than people.

Do you also hate the wishes of the artist who sold it to the news agency to earn a living and keep the image under editorial use as opposed to being commercialized and sold to benefit the Trump campaign? Whether you agree with how it's being used or not, that's what the photographer decided was best for their work.

Copyright laws are bullshit in that their terms are way too long and are often too easily abused against people who are using copywritten materials under fair use. However copyright as a concept is not bullshit. Creative works, including photography, should absolutely be protected from unauthorized use for the benefit of the creator.

Also, there is nothing redeemable about Trump. Even if you feel that copyright law is somehow fundamentally wrong, the correct position can actually be "fuck all parties involved" instead of supporting Trump hawking his swag to pay for his campaign of fascism.

Ummm… no. Copyright law sucks, but it’s really the only protection for artists/writers/etc. in this case, Trump sucks way worse than copyright law lmao.

He’s literally stealing someone’s work and attempting to make money off it as his own.

Yet you say “Go Trump.” Copyright law is all it takes for you to publicly support a fascist. Absolutely amazing.

Your priorities are fucked if you are able to even type those two words next to each other.

I disagree with you, but wanted to be unlike the other comments. I, too, hate copyright, but in this case I'd say Trump deserves to lose, just cause he's a cunt, and winning this will do basically nothing for anyone except him.

Political speech has stronger 1A protection than commercial speech and one could argue for a 'fair use' exemption. Strong enough to win on its merits? I don't know -- I'm not an IP lawyer, probably not. Strong enough that a well-funded legal team could get a federal judge, hesitant to make a ruling certain to be criticized as 'election interference,' to delay a decision until after the election when the signs are all being taken down anyway? I think so.

Do you mean Trump's signature?