- After artist Nick Anderson posted a cartoon about
Donald Trump on Redbubble, he received a notice it was being taken down for trademark infringement. - "We identified this material in your artwork based on guidance provided to us by the owner of those rights," RedBubble wrote, listing the rights holder as "Donald J. Trump for President, Inc."
- Anderson connected with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Redbubble eventually reversed its decision and restored the image.
- In a tweet, Anderson called Trump as "a hypocrite who complains about the 'violation' of his free speech on Twitter, then tries to actively suppress the free speech of others."
President Donald Trump's re-election campaign is alleged to have demanded a satirical cartoon of the president be removed from an on-demand retail site.
On May 17, cartoonist Nick Anderson uploaded a drawing of Trump on Redbubble, which creates print-on-demand t-shirts, posters, mugs, and other merchandise.
The cartoon, titled "The Trump Cult," depicts the president ladling out purple liquid from a vat labeled "Clorox" to followers in MAGA hats. The words "Kool-Aid" and "chloroquine" are crossed out on the vat.
In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones poisoned more than 900 people in his compound in Guyana using Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.
Trump has touted chloroquine as a remedy against the coronavirus, even though the FDA has said it's not proven to be safe or effective.
And in April, Trump also mused about using disinfectant inside people suffering from COVID-19.
The Daily Cartoonist reported that less than 24 hours after Anderson posted the image — and before he'd sold a single product — he received an email from Redbubble telling him it had been taken down.
"We're sorry, but we had to remove some of your artwork from the Redbubble marketplace because it may contain material that violates someone's rights," the message read. "We identified this material in your artwork based on guidance provided to us by the owner of those rights."
According to the email, the rights holder was "Donald J. Trump for President, Inc."
On the Daily Kos, Anderson said he thought Trump's team was trying to claim the MAGA hats in his cartoon were trademark infringement, a claim he described as "absurd" because satire and caricature are protected by the
"We live in a strange time when the #POTUS can falsely accuse someone of murder with impunity (violating @Twitter's terms of service)," Anderson tweeted, "while at the same time bully a private business into removing content it doesn't like."
He filed an appeal but was told several days later that the design would not be reinstated.
Anderson, who won the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning in 2007, then connected with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit that assists cartoonists involved in legal disputes.
The CBLDF wrote a letter to Redbubble explaining the legal precedent for Anderson's artwork and his First Amendment rights.
On May 27, the company reversed course and reinstated his drawing, saying it tries "to respect IP rights and freedom of speech, but we sometimes make mistakes, as we did here," the Guardian reported.
In a statement to the CBLDF, Anderson said he was glad "Redbubble did the right thing,"
"But it must be pointed out; the President of the United States is a hypocrite who complains about the 'violation' of his free speech on Twitter, then tries to actively suppress the free speech of others," he added. "These are actions of an adolescent, wannabe-authoritarian."
CBLDF executive director Charles Browenstein said the organization hoped Redbubble "will continue to assert the First Amendment rights they and their sellers are guaranteed by rejecting any similar censorship attempts."
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
President Trump has had his own First Amendment issues this month. After Twitter fact-checked his tweets about mail-in ballots, Trump complained the platform was "completely stifling FREE SPEECH."
The president is expected to sign an executive order this week asking the Federal Communications Commission to revisit whether removing, flagging, or changing content makes platforms liable for what users post.
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