Trump’s Woodward Lawsuit Called Flawed, Intriguing by IP Lawyers

Former President Donald Trump’s copyright claim in a lawsuit against author Bob Woodward faces several major obstacles while touching on unsettled questions about intellectual property rights over recorded interviews.

Trump’s litigation against Woodward, his publisher Simon & Schuster Inc., and its parent Paramount Global targeted the release of audio recordings of 2019 and 2020 interviews without permission.

He’s demanding $50 million and seeking a court order declaring that his responses are creative expressions that grant him sole authorship over the recordings, a copyright that would extend to derivative works such as Woodward’s audiobook, “The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews ...