By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Donald Trump can’t pursue his almost $50 million lawsuit in opposition to the journalist Bob Woodward for publishing tapes from interviews for his 2020 best-seller “Rage” as an audiobook, a federal decide dominated on Friday.
The choice by U.S. District Choose Paul Gardephe in Manhattan is a victory for Woodward, his writer Simon & Schuster and its former proprietor Paramount World.
They’d argued that federal legislation barred the U.S. president from copyrighting interviews carried out as a part of his official duties, and that no president earlier than him ever demanded royalties for publishing presidential interviews.
The defendants additionally referred to as Woodward the “sole architect and true writer” of the interviews, simply as journalists just like the late Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters had been in interviews with different presidents.
Woodward additionally mentioned his interviews mirrored “traditional information reporting” that helped convey correct data to the general public, and thus amounted to “truthful use.”
Trump was interviewed by Woodward Trump 19 occasions between December 2019 and August 2020, and about 20% of “Rage” got here from the interviews.
The guide was launched in September 2020, whereas the audiobook “The Trump Tapes,” together with Woodward’s commentary, was launched in October 2022.
Trump sued in January 2023, saying he instructed Woodward repeatedly that the interviews had been meant solely for the guide. Woodward mentioned he by no means agreed to that restriction.
The $49.98 million damages request was primarily based on what Trump’s attorneys referred to as projected gross sales of two million audiobooks at $24.99 every.
Paramount offered Simon & Schuster in October 2023 to personal fairness agency KKR for $1.62 billion in money.
The case is Trump v Simon & Schuster Inc et al, U.S. District Courtroom, Southern District of New York, No. 23-06883.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)
