Trump lawyer cites Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift in Electric Avenue case.

The compilation album copyright only protects the greatest hits recordings in their entirety as a whole, Trump lawyer Jesse Binnall told the judge on Friday.

“The bootstrapping they’re trying to do here is just something that can’t be done,” Binnall complained.

To which U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl replied, well, why not?

“An integral part of that compilation was the performance of Electric Avenue,” noted the judge. So why wouldn’t the compilation copyright cover that song, he asked.

“I don’t see the cases that say, ‘You can’t do that,'” the judge told Trump’s lawyer, who took the stand, leafing through a large three-ring binder in vain to find such a case. .

On the contrary, there is clear federal case law that “goes the other way,” as the judge put it, referring to a 1998 Manhattan dispute between two companies that made laminated layered maps.

“The copyright holder has the right to sue for infringement of a portion of that copyright,” an attorney for Grant, Robert Clarida, agreed on the stand Friday.

Trump’s lawyer tried to name-drop the high-level. He mentioned compilation albums by Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift.

Electric Avenue was originally recorded before being released on the Greatest Hits album.

Trump’s lawyer argued that the individual songs on Dylan’s compilations “The Basement Tapes” and Swift’s “Taylor’s Version” are entirely new works and as such are protected by their albums’ copyrights.

“If Eddy Grant had gone into the studio and re-recorded Electric Avenue, it would have been different,” he said.

Koeltl did not say when he would rule on whether Grant Trump’s claim infringed copyright on the sound recording.

If the judge sides with Trump, a reduced case would survive. If he were on Grant’s side, the whole case would survive.

But a separate issue with an even stronger bearing on the outcome was argued Friday: Trump’s use of “Electric Avenue” was allowed because he transformed the song enough to turn it into something else, a new work not covered either. at least by a contested copyright?

Here, too, the judge expressed skepticism, noting from the bench that he had previously rejected Trump’s claim that the tweet transformed the song.

“I will take the matter up,” the judge told lawyers, ending the hearing without setting a date for a decision. No trial date has been set and Grant is seeking $300,000 in damages.