MANHATTAN (CN) — Attorneys for Disney and ABC told a New York federal judge on Thursday that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s satirical prank Cameo videos of disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos are protected against copyright infringement claims by the fair use doctrine.
The expelled lawmaker sued Kimmel, the ABC television network, and Walt Disney Co. in February for fraud and copyright infringement, claiming the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host deceived him into making personalized videos on the Cameo app.
Cameo allows users to request and pay for personalized videos from celebrities. Kimmel aired Santos' videos on his national TV broadcast, ridiculing the embattled New York Republican. Santos claimed that airing them violated copyright.
Nathan Siegel, an attorney for the firm Davis Wright Tremaine, told U.S. District Judge Denise Cote at an initial conference on Thursday that Kimmel’s Cameo videos of the former congressman were meant to mock and criticize a public figure.
That use — protected under the fair use doctrine — illustrated Santos’s “apparent willingness to say patently ridiculous things for money," Siegel said.
Citing an example of one of the “ patently ridiculous things” Santos agreed to say in a paid personalized greeting video, Siegel referenced one Cameo video in which Santos congratulates a user’s friend for coming out as a furry fetishist whose “fursona” is a platypus mixed with a beaver.
“He calls it a Beav-apus,” Siegel said in court on Thursday afternoon, quoting Santos in the video clip.
Santos has argued that Kimmel’s use of the Cameo videos in a national broadcast falls outside of the two types of licenses offered by the app: a personal use license or a business license. He argues he has sole discretion to set prices for each.
“Neither of these licenses permits the Users to broadcast the videos on national television,” his lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Such a license falls outside of the standard agreements provided by Cameo and would need to be independently negotiated between the User and the Talent.”
Cote, a Clinton appointee, asked if those conditions of copyright were explicitly part of Cameo's terms and conditions. Santos attorney Robert Fantone said yes.
The civil suit seeks compensation for a reasonable rate for commercial use of the Cameo videos, as well as disgorgement of profits made from the national broadcast.
Santos attended the initial pretrial conference on Thursday afternoon, but he did not speak at the hearing.
Through the Cameo app, Santos received requests from individuals and businesses seeking personalized video messages. Unbeknownst to former congressman, Kimmel submitted at least 14 requests that used phony names and narratives, Santos said in his complaint.
Both sides told Cote that they were not anticipating a settlement at this juncture, after she asked whether she should anticipate sending the case to magistrate judge to help the parties reach a settlement.
Santos was expelled from Congress last December amid an ethics probe over claims that he committed fraud and violated campaign finance law.
The vote to remove Santos, elected in 2022 to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District, cleared the House on a 311-114 vote. More than 100 Republicans voted in favor of expelling their colleague, breaking with members of GOP leadership, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Although the House voted against removing the embattled lawmaker in a similar vote in early November, the situation began to shift just weeks later, following the release of a House Ethics Committee report which concluded that Santos “sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.”
The ethics panel’s report uncovered evidence that it said supported the nearly two dozen criminal charges levied against Santos in October by the Justice Department.
Congressional investigators found that, among other things, the lawmaker knowingly made false statements to the Federal Election Commission and spent campaign funds on Botox, designer clothes and the adult content platform OnlyFans. Santos, for his part, has decried the ethics investigation as a sham and has maintained his innocence.
The former lawmaker has pleaded not guilty to the 23 federal charges in the Eastern District of New York, including for identity theft and money laundering.
“I feel great about everything,” he told reporters outside of the Manhattan courthouse on Thursday, when asked about the pending criminal trial in Long Island.
His trial date has tentatively been set for Sept. 9, 2024, months after the Republican primary in which he has announced plans to run against Representative Nick LaLota for the seat in New York's First Congressional District.
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