Artistic Copyright Battles on a Global Scale

I just published a brief article in the most recent Art Asia Pacific, The Adversarial Game Widens, concerning global art making and art law. Here’s a taste.

Earlier this year, Apple Inc. agreed to pay Proview Technology Shenzhen-a China-based subsidiary of Taiwan’s Proview Electronics-USD 60 million to avoid a protracted legal dispute over the iPad trademark in China. This past May, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral arguments regarding Richard Prince’s appeal on the standing Cariou v. Prince (2011) copyright infringement decision, which held that Prince’s unauthorized use of French photographer Patrick Cariou’s photographs was not fair use under US law.

Intellectual property issues aside, it would seem that these two cases have little in common. Yet although they are different in medium and industry, they signal the kinds of forthcoming legal battles between Asian and American artistic communities over cultural and aesthetic property rights.

You may access the entire article at Art Asia Pacific online here, and it’s free!