Today, the city announced that it is bowing to pressure from the East Harlem community: [Simone] Leigh has withdrawn her proposal following the backlash, and [Vinnie] Bagwell will design the new monument.

More here.

The heirs of the deceased photographer Alberto Korda, best known for the iconic photograph of Che Guevara that has adorned Tshirts and college dorm posters for fifty years, have issued a takedown demand to Liberty Maniacs over its sales of parody items that display the photo’s cap and hair but replace Guevara’s visage with, alternately, Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Liberty Maniacs is not giving up its fair use freedoms without a fight, arguing in their response to the demand letter “that moral rights are not enforceable in the United States, that the First Amendment protects the right of parody, and that any copyright claims would be defeated by fair use.”

More here.

Mercedes-Benz USA is asking a judge to protect it from legal action, or what Mercedes-Benz calls a “shakedown,” over its use of images of Detroit outdoor murals in social media posts.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila refused to enforce a French court’s order mandating that defendant pay $2.2 million for infringing copyrights, ruling that defendant’s use of the Picasso images constitutes fair use.

For instance, if the Coca-Cola Company or Brillo had sued Warhol for copyright infringement, we might never have Pop art, right?

Larry Gagosian: “I think you always have to be on the side of the artist. Also, those approbations change over time, in terms of what’s acceptable as subject matter.”

Entire interview here.

We have here a situation of the perfect being the enemy of the good. I think what is disturbing is the rhetoric of some of the protestors, who are in favor of destroying the system. I think that would do irreparable harm. The protestors who want to destroy the system, want to destroy museums, don’t have a solution or a reasonable alternative to offer. It’s relatively easy to talk about destroying a system. It’s harder to build and sustain one. While I appreciate protests, those of us who are focused on solutions can’t be distracted by extreme perspectives.

More here.

Tananbaum, the chief investment officer of GoldenTree Asset Management LP — or, as Gagosian called him, the “imperious” multimillionaire — claims [Gagosian] lures unwary investors with promises of custom-made art, then keeps them waiting, and waiting, all the while using their payments to keep the scheme going. In his initial complaint he called it a “garden-variety, interest-free fraudulent financial routine that hearkens the name Ponzi.”

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