Tim and Moby, the human-and-robot cartoon duo, are known for explaining scientific concepts and historical events to kids in classrooms across America.
In a video posted by the White House this week, though, the pair were instead wearing MAGA hats and explaining why the Department of Education has “utterly failed our students.”
Tim and Moby’s creators responded with a lesson on the nuances of copyright law.
“Copyright is a tricky but important subject,” BrainPOP, the company behind Tim and Moby, said on X.
Copyright is a tricky but important subject. Luckily Tim and Moby are here to help make it a little easier to understand.
🎥: Copyright on BrainPOP 3-8 pic.twitter.com/CDxUMBteDf— BrainPOP (@brainpop) August 25, 2026
The response video has since racked up nearly 3 million views on X alone. Many comments applauded BrainPOP for showing some gumption against a White House — and a president — that has been repeatedly sued for copyright infringement by artists and creators.
The White House video was removed from X on Thursday, though it remains on Instagram and Facebook. The White House and BrainPOP did not respond to a request for comment sent Thursday.
While BrainPOP stopped short of directly calling out the White House in its video, two copyright law professors told Business Insider that the education company has options for recourse, should it choose to pursue them.
“This is a pretty straightforward case,” said Jane C. Ginsburg, a professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia University. “The characters were copied. They were incorporated in another work that doesn’t criticize, comment on, or otherwise say anything about the characters or what they stand for.”
One option, according to Cathay Y. N. Smith, a professor of law at Illinois Tech, is for BrainPOP to file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown request with the social media companies where the White House posted the videos.
“Copyright owners can typically file a DMCA takedown notice to the online platform hosting [the content] and ask them to take it down,” Smith said.
Ginsburg said this option “might be the most direct and least expensive way of dealing with this.”
A DMCA request is a useful alternative to a copyright infringement lawsuit, Smith said, because a court can only grant monetary damages to a company suing the government. A court cannot grant an injunction — which would take down the content — against the government.
Should BrainPOP sue, Smith said the White House video may not fall under “fair use” distinction because Tim and Moby are highly creative works and the White House replicated the characters in a format resembling a BrainPOP episode.
As an educational company that has contracts with school districts across the country, BrainPOP would be sensitive to its trademarked characters being used for partisan political purposes, Smith said.
“What they want is an injunction, and they want the injunction so that their work isn’t now associated with a party,” Smith said.
The Trump administration has faced lawsuits and takedown requests before for using songs and other intellectual property in its political messaging.
In 2024, a federal judge in Manhattan found then-candidate Trump liable for damages in a copyright battle over Eddy Grant’s ’80s dance hit “Electric Avenue.”
In May, the owner of music used in “Peanuts” animated specials sued the US Department of the Interior, alleging the government used “O Tannenbaum” from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in a social media post without permission.
“This is not unusual for Trump or his associates,” Ginsburg said.
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