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They’re “Gonna Work it Out, Bye Bye”—The Velvet Underground and Warhol Foundation Settle Banana Trademark Case

Posted by Nicholas O'Donnell on May 30, 2013 at 8:39 AM

The Velvet Underground and the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts have settled their lawsuit over the right to control iconic “banana” image from the cover of the 1967 legendary The Velvet Underground and Nico album. An earlier September 7, 2012 ruling for the Warhol Foundation finding that that the Velvet Underground had agreed not to sue on any copyright theories left unanswered questions of whether the band had claim to a superseding trademark in the image that would allow it, and not the Warhol Foundation, to control the image’s reproduction. The dispute is now over, and those questions will not be judicially resolved.

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Topics: Trademark, The Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Copyright, The Velvet Underground and Nico, the Velvet Underground

Ruminations on Connoisseurship, Forgery, Knoedler and Litigation in the News

Posted by Nicholas O'Donnell on December 9, 2011 at 5:02 AM

We’ve been following a number of prominent stories for several weeks now and thinking about what they mean in the crossover between art and the law. It’s fair to say that a theme is starting to develop, namely, that after the Beltracchi forgery trial in Cologne, the Warhol Foundation’s decision to close its doors to authentication requests, and the brewing scandal over the authenticity of paintings sold by Knoedler and other galleries, the legal significance of knowing—and even asking—the age-old question from Art History 101—“who made that?”—has come again to the fore.

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Topics: Cologne, Forgery, Knoedler, slander, The Art Newspaper, Inc., Degas, Jackson Pollock, libel, catalogue raisonné, Wolfgang Beltracchi, Collections, Francis Bacon, The Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, defamation, Georgina Adam, The Art Law Blog, connoisseurship

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About the Blog


The Art Law Report provides timely updates and commentary on legal issues in the museum and visual arts communities. It is authored by Nicholas M. O'Donnell, partner in our Art & Museum Law Practice.

The material on this site is for general information only and is not legal advice. No liability is accepted for any loss or damage which may result from reliance on it. Always consult a qualified lawyer about a specific legal problem.

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