Disney’s Lawyers Successfully Defended Jimmy Kimmel (About Fair Use, Not His Free Speech Mocking Trump)

['Mike Masnick', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] Techdirt 2025-09-22 00:00:00

Disney’s Lawyers Successfully Defended Jimmy Kimmel (About Fair Use, Not His Free Speech Mocking Trump)from the one-for-two-last-week deptUpdating the updating: I started writing this post last Tuesday, but put it on hold when everything happened last Wednesday, and rewrote it this weekend to post today, only now as I was getting ready to post it, seeing that Disney has reinstated Jimmy Kimmel, so… yeah. So, last Monday, there was some news about Jimmy Kimmel and a famously untruthful Republican politician. But that Monday story is still worth telling, because it involves one of the more delicious ironies in recent copyright law: Disney successfully defending fair use. It’s that fair use works when courts apply it correctly, protecting legitimate commentary and criticism from copyright abuse. Filed Under: 2nd circuit, brendan carr, copyright, donald trump, fair use, george santos, jimmy kimmelCompanies: abc, cameo, disney