Late on Tuesday night, Warner Bros.’ Pictures were forced to file a copyright infringement complaint against President Donald Trump and The White House due to their most recent controversial tweet. The two-minute 2020 re-election campaign video, which has since been taken down by Twitter after the complaint was filed, used music from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises without the film studios consent.
The very strange video, which used the composer Hans Zimmer’s “Why Do We Fall” from the 2012 film, also used the same font from the movie, but portrayed a very different message. The text, which appears to be have been altered from another quote, said: “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they call you a racist. Donald J. Trump. Your vote. Proved them all wrong. Trump: The Great Victory. 2020.”
The trailer-like video showed footage of Donald Trump from various rallies and events around the country, along with people who Trump would consider villains in his own superhero story, such as former President Barack Obama, his previous Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton, and comedians Rosie O’Donnell and Amy Schumer.
The video also highlighted Trump’s meetings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Brazil’s recently elected President Jair Bolsonaro.
After BuzzFeed News first reported that the music was used without approval, Warner Bros. took action and quickly filled a copyright claim. Last night a spokesperson from Warner Bros. said in a statement: “The use of Warner Bros.’ score from ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ in the campaign video was unauthorized. We are working through the appropriate legal channels to have it removed.”
The quick action by Warner. Bros led to Twitter removing the video after only a couple of hours, as it was deemed to have breached the social networks own copyright policies. However, this didn’t stop the video being viewed almost 1.8 million times.
This isn’t the first time that Trump has gotten into trouble for using cultural material without approval. Last year, Trump tweeted a meme based on the Game of Thrones tagline “Winter is Coming”, which said “Sanctions are Coming”, much to HBO’s displeasure.
Previously, Twitter also took steps to remove another one of Donald Trump’s tweets due to copyright infringement. Earlier this year his official Twitter account used the band R.E.M.’s most famous tracks “Everybody Hurts” in a promotional, which was taken down after the band complained to Twitter.
As the 2020 presidential race already begins to hot up, we’re sure this won’t be the last of Trump’s tweets that causes some level of controversy.
