July 2, 2020
Twitter censored President Donald Trump’s account yet again yesterday, taking down a meme posted by the president that featured a rallying cry to his supporters, after the New York Times, which reportedly owns the rights to the original image, filed a copyright complaint.
Fair use doctrine permits the use of copyrighted materials for the purposes of, among other things, commentary and parody. However, the widely criticized Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows copyright holders to request that content be taken down even if it falls under fair use, if certain conditions are met.
The now-deleted Trump meme featured an image of the president with the words “In reality they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
A New York Times spokesperson confirmed to Axios that it had filed the copyright claim that led to the picture being removed.