https://petapixel.com/202...ringement/

Sections of the article:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the late Andy Warhol infringed on a photographer’s copyright when he created a series of silk screens based on a photograph of the late singer Prince.

The ruling was 7-2, with Justice Elena Kagan penning a stinging dissent and arguing that the opinion will “stifle creativity of every sort.”

The court rejected arguments made by a lawyer of the Andy Warhol Foundation (the artist died in 1987) that his work was sufficiently transformative so as not to trigger copyright concerns.

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The opinion has been closely anticipated by the global art world watching to see how the court would balance an artist’s freedom to borrow from existing works and the restrictions of copyright law.

“Goldsmith’s original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the majority opinion, referring to Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer at the center of the case.

At issue is the so-called “fair use” doctrine in copyright law that permits the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances.

Here, Sotomayor said “fair use” should not apply to an image Warhol created that is referred to as “Orange Prince.”

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“Although the majority opinion focuses on only one of the four factors courts are supposed to apply in determining when works of art can be fairly used by others, there’s little question that the majority opinion will have a major impact on these kinds of reproductions – making it harder for artists to repurpose the works of others even with meaningful differences (and not just reproduce them), without their permission,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

“Indeed, whether one thinks Justice Sotomayor’s majority opinion or Justice Kagan’s dissent has the better of the legal arguments, it’s hard to disagree with Kagan that such an approach could ‘stifle creativity’ across a range of artistic media – and that perhaps Congress ought to revisit whether this is the best outcome,” he said.

I though Warhol would win--it was transformative! To me if the original work is way less known and there is NOTHING special about the photo and without what Warhol did the image would have been long forgotten (by most) and would be obscure.

This case could have a massive ripple effect. Just in the Prince world alone there is an amazing series of books with different Prince images...many of witch are directly from copyright protected photos. (Some owen by the estate).

Depending on how broad a ruling this is, this could have massive ripples.

bad ruling, bad copyright, fuck everything.

Sigh.

A photographer waiting, what?, 40+ years to go to court?

Why not go for it while Prince was still alive, during 36 years.

No balls?

As if they all want a piece of the late purple cake.

Picking rotten flesh from a dead body.

laytonian said:

This wasn't a suit against Prince. The photo was relicensed by Warh people after P died. I hope this shuts down all those crappy photoshops people are"creating".

We know what it was.

Vannormal said:

Sigh.

A photographer waiting, what?, 40+ years to go to court?

Why not go for it while Prince was still alive, during 36 years.

No balls?

As if they all want a piece of the late purple cake.

Picking rotten flesh from a dead body.

They did not wait - The photographer was properly paid and attributed for the one off original use of their photo used in the purple print for a 1984 Vanity Fair article. They were not paid for the subsequent use of the orange print in a 2016 Vanity Fair article after Prince died.

this is so fucking stupid. prince is a person. it's a picture of a person, the warhol print(s) isn't even exactly exactly identical to the picture in orientation and it's definitely far removed from the picture in color. why can we own nebulous ideas like the way a person was looking at a camera at some point in time? when the fuck does it end?

just absolute madness.

[Edited 5/20/23 6:24am]

The Warhol prints (there are several) are identical to Goldsmith's photo. All Warhol did was draw and color on them. Look at the hair. Every strand is identical.

laytonian said:

The Warhol prints (there are several) are identical to Goldsmith's photo. All Warhol did was draw and color on them. Look at the hair. Every strand is identical.

Today it can be done by rotate a bit, crop, apply a basic edge detect or simplistic trace lines, reduce to 2 colours and repeatedly replace the lighter one.

Hence the where does it end is with respecting the commercial rights of the original artist (ie the photographer for Newsweek) against the publisher of Vanty Fair and requiring the screenprinting artist's estate in the middle to work within the original contract.

laytonian said:

The Warhol prints (there are several) are identical to Goldsmith's photo. All Warhol did was draw and color on them. Look at the hair. Every strand is identical.

Exactly. Warhol could've taken his own photo of Prince. Instead he used a copyright protected one, the work of another artist.

GaryMF said:

laytonian said:

The Warhol prints (there are several) are identical to Goldsmith's photo. All Warhol did was draw and color on them. Look at the hair. Every strand is identical.

Exactly. Warhol could've taken his own photo of Prince. Instead he used a copyright protected one, the work of another artist.

And as the photographer was paid for the first use of the purple coloured on in a Vanity Fair magazine in 1984, there was no problem.

This changed when Warhol's estate licenced Vanity Fair's owners to use the orange version one in Vanity Fair in 2016 without the rights. The court determined that "fair use" cannot apply because it is a photo for a magazine manipulated to be a photo for a magazine, so while it looked a bit different its commercial use had not changed for the original artists intended commercial use.

IanRG said:

GaryMF said:

Exactly. Warhol could've taken his own photo of Prince. Instead he used a copyright protected one, the work of another artist.

And as the photographer was paid for the first use of the purple coloured on in a Vanity Fair magazine in 1984, there was no problem.

This changed when Warhol's estate licenced Vanity Fair's owners to use the orange version one in Vanity Fair in 2016 without the rights. The court determined that "fair use" cannot apply because it is a photo for a magazine manipulated to be a photo for a magazine, so while it looked a bit different its commercial use had not changed for the original artists intended commercial use.

What's really sad is that the prints are in private hands.

Good call and let artists be more creative instead of lazily using others work, color it and pretend its new art.

Vannormal said:

Goldsmith's image was used and paid by Vanity Fair for a single use, and then they gave Warhol the license to create one single print for their cover.

Andy then made multiple silver prints from this final image for his own use. Aparently

Warhol's foundation sued Goldsmith to obtain a statement for fair use.

"I just can't believe all the things people say... Controversy"

Whatever our opinion is... Lynn Goldsmith smelled money, and Andy would've LOVED all this attention shit.

Mind this was a very thoroughly calculated and expensive 6-year lawsuit with a mission; money!

Wouldn't you?

Oh yeah and recognition, not to forget.

That is the AWF countersued after being sued.

Sure Goldsmith smelled money - but this has been a issue amongst professional photographers who have seen their work taken to be used commerically by other artists without recognition or payment. These other artists have hidden behind the transformative argument - this ruling requires that the transformation must not be merely colourising and cropping to change the artistic "expression", but for commericial use it must not have the same purpose and character - ie the photograph was still being used in Vanity Fair in 2016 for same purpose as it was used in the original Newsweek magazine and in the first Vanity Fair magazine.

Dreg Warhol piece...

IanRG said:

laytonian said:

The Warhol prints (there are several) are identical to Goldsmith's photo. All Warhol did was draw and color on them. Look at the hair. Every strand is identical.

Today it can be done by rotate a bit, crop, apply a basic edge detect or simplistic trace lines, reduce to 2 colours and repeatedly replace the lighter one.

Hence the where does it end is with respecting the commercial rights of the original artist (ie the photographer for Newsweek) against the publisher of Vanty Fair and requiring the screenprinting artist's estate in the middle to work within the original contract.

....and digital alterations leave a trace.

For anyone interested https://www.nytimes.com/2...arhol.html