The Supreme Court of the United States has issued its long-awaited ruling in the dispute between photographer Lynn Goldsmith and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (AWFVA) on May 18, 2023. The Court held the AWFVA’s delivery to Condé Nast magazine in 2016 of an Andy Warhol silkscreen from 1984 based on a 1981 Goldsmith photograph of the musician Prince did not satisfy the first factor (of four) of the statutory fair use elements. The Court took a narrow approach, explicitly declining to reach the question of whether Warhol’s original work would qualify for a fair use defense, holding only that the 2016 use did not.
(Williams College Museum of Art Security Badge, ca. 1993)
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Topics:
Cariou v. Prince,
Copyright Act,
Philippa Loengard,
Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music Inc.,
Kernochan Center for Law Media and the Arts,
17 U.S.C. § 107,
Columbia Law School,
Andy Warhol,
Fair Use,
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,
Syracuse University,
Condé Nast,
Kagan,
Sotomayor,
Roberts,
Titian,
Lynn Goldsmith,
Vanity Fair,
Thomas,
Giorgione,
Goya
I recently tackled the public discussion in Germany about whether to rename the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, the foundation that oversees the State Museums of Berlin and some of the most remarkable collections in the world. Readers of the Art Law Report will know this name well, the SPK is the defendant in the lawsuit brought by my clients for the restitution of the Welfenschatz, or Guelphe Treasure, that the Supreme Court heard in 2020. While I've never been shy about criticizing the SPK about its approach in our our case (which is on appeal, briefs here and here), this piece addresses a different question. Namely, what place does the name "Prussia" have in the 21st century? For anyone like me who still thinks about the historical sliding doors of the Grossdeutschelösung and Kleindeutschelösungdebate of the 19th century about how to unite the German-speaking states and duchies, this piece is for you.
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Topics:
Holy Roman Empire,
Prussia,
"Elephant Mural",
Martin Luther,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Sueddeutsche Zeitung,
Hermann Goering,
Der Spiegel,
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation,
Andy Warhol,
Welfenschatz,
Humboldt Forum,
C. Montgomery Burns,
Claudia Roth,
Siam,
Sigismund of Luxembourg,
Friedrich VI,
Hohenzollern,
Brandenburg,
Kaliningrad,
Augustus II the Strong,
Nefertiti,
Pergamon Altar,
Annalena Bärbock,
Monika Grütters,
Götz Aly,
Joseph Beuys,
Königsberg,
Nazism,
Konrad Adenauer,
Hermann Parzinger,
Luf Boat,
Bild
Sullivan has filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the upcoming Supreme Court case Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith. The brief was filed as counsel of record for copyright scholar Philippa S. Loengard, the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School. The case concerns the applicability of Section 107 of the Copyright Act, which permits as a fair use that would otherwise be copyright infringement—to a print made by Andy Warhol from a photograph of the musician Prince by photographer Lynn Goldsmith. In particular, the question presented to the Court addresses the implications of the Court’s holding nearly thirty years ago in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 579 (1994) that allowed for the possibility that a secondary use could be considered a fair use if it were sufficiently “transformative.” What exactly that means in the context of visual art has been a fraught—and at times incoherent—subject in recent years. Our brief explains that the Court should return the analysis of fair use to the four factors established by Congress. In the case of the first of the four factors, the Court should focus on the statutory language of the purpose and character of the works. By contrast, the inquiry into the meaning or message of the works advocated by the Warhol Foundation and the amici supporting it is a fool’s errand that provides no clarity and would render the copyright in photographs effectively unenforceable. This case is not a battle between Lynn Goldsmith and Andy Warhol; those artists proved entirely capable in 1984 of arranging the balance for themselves. It is a battle between a maximalist view by the Warhol Foundation that dismisses the value of photography as a creative medium at all.
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Topics:
Copyright Act,
Roy Orbison,
Toward a Fair Use Standard,
Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music Inc.,
Kernochan Center for Law Media and the Arts,
Philippa S. Loengard Esq.,
Columbia Law School,
Prince,
transformative,
Andy Warhol,
Fair Use,
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,
Condé Nast,
People Magazine,
The Time,
2 Live Crew,
Death Valley,
Velázquez,
Rubens,
King Philip IV of Spain,
Las Meninas,
Section 107,
Billboard,
Pierre N. Leval,
“Oh, Pretty Woman”,
Mickey Mouse
Last week the Art Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association hosted a terrific two-hour event. Entitled “Rethinking Art Authentication,” the discussion aimed to address a way forward from the problems of fakes, forgeries, and authentication lawsuits that have plagued the art market in recent years. It was a lively and fascinating evening.
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Topics:
Karl Waldmann,
Ceroni,
Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute,
Leonardo da Vinci,
Cady Noland,
Knoedler,
New York Assembly,
Catalogue raisonée,
authentication,
Dean R. Nicyper,
New York University,
Colette Loll,
Blue Room,
Dan Flavin,
Dada,
Visual Artists Rights Act,
Rick Johnson,
Rethinking Art Authentication,
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduct,
Jennifer L. Mass,
Art Law Committee,
Trial Lawyers Association,
Beltracchi,
Events,
La Bella Principessa,
Hyperspectral imaging,
Gerhard Richter,
New York City Bar Association,
Cornell Tech,
Rijksmuseum,
Cowboys Milking,
Andy Warhol,
Picasso,
New York Senate,
Walter Benjamin,
Elmyr de Hory,
Withers Bergman LLP,
Amadeo Modigliani,
Amy M. Adler
After two months of scathing criticism, the German Ministry of Culture has submitted a watered-down, but still problematic, revision to its Cultural Heritage Protection Law. Back in July, Minister of Culture Monika Grütters announced the initial proposal to amend Germany’s law, or Kulturgutschutzgesetz. The revision, however, is optical at best, and seems targeted only to soften criticism while still taking a regressive view of cultural property that is more at home in the 18th century than the 21st. It will probably pass, to the detriment of forward thinking art market players who will move their trade elsewhere.
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Topics:
cultural property,
Georg Baselitz,
German Cultural Ministry,
U.S.,
Restitution,
UNESCO,
Switzerland,
Austria,
Kulturgutschutzgesetz,
Gerhard Richter,
Museums,
Andy Warhol,
Monika Grütters,
Cultural Heritage Protection,
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation,
NAGPRA
Tom Brady will be in New York today at a hearing in the litigation over his 4-game suspension by Roger Goodell for allegedly being “generally aware” of the deflation of footballs in the AFC Championship thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts last winter. For good legal analysis of the absolute fiasco that is the NFL’s attempt at a middle-school science project (instigated by the condition of a football introduced from the opposing team—but congratulations on another AFC Finalist banner) and the resulting adjudicatory process, I suggest John Dowd’s blog (“The NFL's investigation of and rules against Tom Brady are a travesty, and they've resulted in uncalled-for penalties. And it's all based on a report that lacks basic integrity, fairness and credibility.”). Dowd is an experienced federal prosecutor and led the investigation, among others, into Pete Rose and gambling for Major League Baseball. Most notably, he was sufficiently offended by the whole exercise to take the issue up with no relationship to the parties. Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk and Steph Stradley have also covered the story well.
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Topics:
Left Shark,
ProFootballTalk,
ALS. Metro,
Copyright Act,
Pete Frates,
David Portnoy,
Indianapolis Colts,
AFC Championship,
Free Brady,
Mike Florio,
Barstool Sports,
Jacqueline Kennedy,
John Dowd,
Ice Bucket Challenge,
Shepard Fairey,
Major League Baseball,
Copyright,
Roger Goodell,
Senator Obama,
Hope,
AFC Finalist,
Andy Warhol,
Tom Brady,
Charlie Baker,
Massachusetts Governor,
Fair Use
The U.S. District Court in Manhattan has dismissed the copyright claim filed by the Velvet Underground against the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts over the iconic “banana” image from the cover of the legendary The Velvet Underground and Nico album. Without reaching the merits of the claim, the court ruled that the Velvet Underground had agreed previously not to sue on any copyright theories. Reporting of the decision has been spotty at best, however, ranging from declaring a “win” for the Foundation, to suggestions that the copyright question was decided. In fact, the Court did not reach the copyright issue, and the Velvet Underground still has other trademark-based claims that remain very much alive and unaffected by the decision.
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Topics:
Copyright,
The Velvet Underground and Nico,
the Velvet Underground,
Andy Warhol
