His case was thrown out by a U.S. District Court judge, but George Santos isn’t one to go away quietly—especially, it seems, when Jimmy Kimmel is involved.
Santos, you may recall, filed a lawsuit against the late-night host in February for commissioning a series of absurd Cameo videos under different names and airing them on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as part of a segment they dubbed “Will Santos Say It?”
The disgraced former New York representative alleged that Kimmel and team infringed on his copyright, violated Cameo’s terms of service, and committed fraud when they aired the videos, but his case was dismissed in August after U.S. District Judge Denise Cote determined that Kimmel’s use of the videos was protected under the “fair use” doctrine.
In a brief filed this week with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Santos argues that the court erred in its judgment that the Fair Use Doctrine should be applicable in a case when the copyrighted work was “fraudulently induced” by the party claiming it.
“The district court’s ruling creates a perverse ‘deceiver’s privilege’ that would allow bad actors to exploit creators by fraudulently manufacturing content for criticism,” Santos writes in his brief. “This undermines copyright law’s constitutional purpose of promoting creative expression.”
Santos, who pled guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in August, currently faces a minimum of two years in prison and is required to pay restitution of $373,000. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for February 2025.
