As the controversy around the possible sale of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ collection continues to swirl, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has given some of his most pointed comments to date about his expectations.
Nicholas O'Donnell
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Topics: Diego Rivera, Michigan Attorney General, Judge Rhodes, Christie's, Detroit Institute of Arts, Bankruptcy, Michigan Constitution, Bill Schuette, Kevyn Orr, Detroit Bankruptcy
A reminder that two weeks from Monday, I will join a panel discusion at Columbia Law School entited "Selling the Museum's Collection: Is Deaccessioning Ever Appropriate?" From the event description:
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Topics: Donn Zaretsky, Roberta Smith, Deaccession, Pippa Loengard, Detroit Institute of Arts, the Art Law Report, Events, Columbia Law School, Nicholas O'Donnell, New York Times
I’ll be at the International Bar Association Conference all week here in Boston, starting tonight. Among others, I’m looking forward to the sessions below (the first featuring my partner at Sullivan & Worcester, Laura Steinberg, the trademark panel featuring my partner at Sullivan & Worcester Kim Herman, and others given by the Art, Cultural Institutions and Heritage Law Committee). If you follow the Art Law Report and you’ll be in attendance, welcome to Boston, and drop a line or a Tweet.
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Topics: Laura Steinberg, Annual Conference, Kim Herman, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Events, Copyright, Boston, IBA, International Bar Association
Comments by the federal judge overseeing the copyright dispute arising out of the Google Books project could portend a lasting effect on reproductions of visual arts. Elevating the question of social benefit in a fair use analysis, Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York posed a question that, applied broadly (which is no theoretical proposition where Google is involved) could turn fair use analysis on its head. Time will tell if the comments were oral argument musings or something more lasting.
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Topics: Google Books, 17 U.S.C. § 107, Copyright, The Authors Guild, Judge Denny Chin, Fair Use
News media have started to pick up on the lawsuit filed in August by Lawrence Lessig, which challenges takedown notice practices by Liberation Music under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”) in relation to Lessig's lecture series later posted on YouTube, which featured third party content creators and the song "Lisztomania" by the French band Phoenix, whose copyrights Liberation apparently claims it enforces.
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Topics: Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Lawrence Lessig, Lisztomania, Copyright, Liberation Music Pty Ltd
For more than two years now, the collapse of the M. Knoedler & Co. Gallery in New York amidst allegations of forged paintings by well-known 20th Century artists has sent ripples in all directions: legal, art historical, legislative, and connoisseurship. Several recent developments have drawn focus to the likely litigation fallout among those affected by the scandal.
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Topics: Andy Warhol Foundation, Daedalus Foundation, William K. Rashabaum, Forgery, Knoedler, Ann Freedman, Wolfgang Belctracchi, Marco Grassi, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Patricia Cohen, Litigation, Glafira Rosales, New York Times, M. Knoedler & Co., connoisseurship, New York Magazine, National Public Radio
I will be on a panel at the Center for Law and the Arts at Columbia Law School on Monday, October 28, 2013 discussing deaccessioning issues. Details are yet to come, but co-panelists will include Donn Zaretsky of John Silberman Associates (and writer of the Art Law Blog), and Roberta Smith of the New York Times. The event is scheduled for lunch. The panelists have quite different views of the issue, and it promises to be a lively and well-informed discussion.
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Topics: Donn Zaretsky, Roberta Smith, Columbia Law School, Center for Law and the Arts, New York Times
Patrick Cariou, after winning his copyright claim against Richard Prince in the District Court in 2011, suffered a stinging reversal earlier this year when the Second Circuit found in Prince’s favor as to his use of Cariou’s Yes, Rasta series in the Prince Canal Zone collages. The Second Circuit decision has been widely derided by copyright analysts, who apart from the relative merits of Cariou vs. Prince found the decision unclear as guidance to future artists and copyright holders. For the Art Law Report’s coverage of the case, click here.
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Topics: Cariou v. Prince, Richard Prince, Roy Orbison, Canal Zone, Patrick Cariou, Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music Inc., Yes Rasta
The Holocaust Art Restitution Project reports today that a new version of Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act that would have amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to preclude claims against defendants whose “commercial activity” is limited to the loan of artwork whose ownership is in dispute, but which are immunized from seizure pursuant to the Immunity from Seizure Act (22 U.S.C. § 2459). The Art Law Report covered the bill extensively last year. Although the bill as previously passed would have exempted Holocaust claims from the exception, the bill in broad terms was designed to prevent another Malevich v. City of Amsterdam situation, in which the very loan of a painting immunized from seizure was itself held to satisfy the commercial activity jurisdictional requirements of the FSIA.
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Topics: Holocaust Art Restitution Project, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Association of Art Museum Directors, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
One of the lurking issues in the murky waters of copyright fair use is the takedown notice provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”). The DMCA, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 512, implements two 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization treaties and absolves internet service providers (“ISPs”) who disable allegedly infringing content when notified by the copyright holder. In practice, this is known as a “takedown notice,” and serves to protect ISPs like YouTube from secondary infringement if a user posts something with infringing content (the easiest example being an unedited clip of a copyrighted movie). Copyright holders patrol the internet to various degrees, but § 512 gives the holders a tool to encourage compliance, and ISPs a way not to be sued out of existence.
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Topics: World Intellectual Property Organization, ISPs, Copyright Act, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, Viacom, YouTube, Eldred v. Ashcroft, Lawrence Lessig, Copyright, 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, Liberation Party Music Ltd., 17 U.S.C. § 512, Fair Use, Harvard Law School
