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 year, the Ninth Circuit stood out amongst fair use decisions in its opinion in Seltzter v. Green Day, particularly in contrast to what has persuasively been dubbed the Second Circuit’s "know it when we see it" approach to transformativeness as annunciated in the Cariou v. Prince decision. By contrast, the potentially destabilizing effect of the Ninth Circuit’s highest profile copyright case in 2014 can scarcely be overstated. Unless and until the full court reverses a three-judge panel in Garcia v. Google, Inc., nearly every motion picture will be in peril of "infringement." The consequences for the First Amendment and for free expression would be devastating. Although it was not raised, expect fair use to come into play if the decision stands and the case heads back to the trial court. The film is clearly transformative precisely because the plaintiff argues that her performance was unknowingly changed in service of a message she found offensive.
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Topics:
Walter Sobchak,
Copyright Act,
Feist,
Prince v. Cariou,
Libya,
Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
DMCA,
Youssef,
YouTube,
Innocence of Muslims,
Green Day,
Seltzter v. Green Day,
Nothing Compares 2 U,
prior restraint,
17 U.S.C. § 106,
Cindy Garcia,
Copyright,
Prince,
First Amendment,
Google,
Sinead O’Connor,
Benghazi,
work for hire
