https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-loses-electric-avenue-copyright-lawsuit-2024-9
A federal judge in Manhattan found Trump liable in the "Electric Avenue" copyright case, saying he offered no real defense for using the song.
It's not really the same when you're talking about a campaigning politician.
No one sane wants to be associated with Trump's campaign, and him using the song is implying association.
You know who (apparently) didn't get sued? The person who made the video and initially tweeted it. Because they probably took down their tweet when they got the cease and desist letter. Trump & Co. retweeted it commercially and refused to pay for it. They then got sued because they refused to take it down after getting the letter.
If you find yourself as the recipient of a cease and desist letter because you used someone else's creative work for your own profit, just don't be an ass and take it down. Then you won't get sued.
Wouldn't that result in many musicians never getting paid for their work? Just upload high quality full audio clips to low resolution video unrelated and share with everyone. Everyone can strip the video and have the audio for free, making it a legal platform to upload the content for distribution. Downloading for non commercial gain used to be the grey area, where uploading was the illegal part I believe. At least that's what I remember from torrents and seeding back in the day
If you have listened to Electric Avenue, you will understand why Eddie Grant may have been particularly outraged by Trump using it.
If you mean "someone" as in an individual that is posting something they made that happens to contain the song, then I agree with you.
But there are many other uses where there should be restrictions (and need to pay royalties/get licence), like here where it's being used in a political campaign, or for commercial purposes, or if being posted by a corporation, etc.