Elsinore Album Cover

Is adapting an adapted Lichtenstein image copyright infringement? No, says rock band Elsinore, who allege that they received a letter from the intellectual property manager for the Roy Lichtenstein Estate claiming that the band  had adapted a Lichtenstein’s Kiss V image for the cover of their new album without consent.

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A Swiss woman says she is “devastated” because Christie’s misattributed a consigned drawing as a 19th century German imitation of Renaissance art and sold it at auction for less than $20,000. Art historians and forensic experts now believe Leonardo da Vinci drew the ink portrait and valued it at more than $150 million[.]

Via Courthouse News Service.

David Hammons

According to Americans for the Arts, Obama has proposed a $6.4 million decrease for the NEA budget for the Fiscal Year 2011. The NEA is currently funded at $167 million for Fiscal  Year 2010. If you’d like to support an increase to the NEA budget to $180 million, Americans for the Arts has provided an on-line letter which you can fill in and submit to your representatives and elected officials.

The White House has posted hundreds of comments online in response to the call by Victoria Espinel, the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, for guidance on how to improve enforcement of IP rights. You can read the letters here. Note that responses include letters from photographers, visual artists, and Google, as well as a strong anti-piracy letter from the AFL-CIO. The University of Michigan counters with a letter on the social and financial costs of copyright enforcement.

Chevron asked a federal judge to order the release of outtakes from Joe Berlinger’s 2009 documentary, Crude, shot in Ecuador, saying the footage will exonerate the company in a multibillion trial in Ecuador. But an attorney for Berlinger and Third Eye Productions said that granting Chevron’s request would be a blow to the First Amendment. Berlinger is contesting Chevron’s request, arguing that he could never work as a documentary filmmaker again if his sources could not be guaranteed confidentiality. However, when asked if there were any confidentiality agreements signed, Berlinger’s attorney simply replied that confidentialiy agreements are “never put in writing.”

However, Chevron attorney Randy Mastro argues that there are film clips which would show that Chevron was denied due process in Ecuador. Mastro showed scenes in court which he said showed that attorneys representing the plaintiffs in Ecuador engaged in misconduct, “doing things that no attorney would do.”

Chevron claims it faces a baseless lawsuit in Ecuador, financed by the U.S. law firm Kohn, Swift and Graf, which is looking for a $27 billion payday for itself and its clients, Ecuadoran nongovernmental organizations.

Berlinger’s other films include “Paradise Lost” and “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.” Courthouse News Service has more here.

UPDATE: May 6, 2010

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court granted a petition by Chevron to issue a subpoena for hundreds of hours of footage from a documentary about the pollution of the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador and the oil company’s involvement. Via NY Times.

One would think that by now Shepard Fairey would have a lawyer on retainer. Animal, the website not the living organism, reports today that Fairey’s mural on the Bowery may have to be removed by Fairey unless he obtains the necessary city permits. According to NY City notices, the mural was erected without a permit and if the correct paperwork isn’t filed, the structure will have to be torn down. You can view images of the permits on Animal’s website, here.

Speaking of copyright, “Cloned,” a Jenkinson/Goode Production, comes to us via Ray Dowd over at the Copyright Litigation blog. This is quite funny and witty no doubt, but what’s more interesting to me is how it uses race as a significant factor. I don’t have statistics, but one issue that is never addressed by the “free culture” movement is how rampant free-for-all grabbing without just compensation targets and negatively affects minority artists. One can easily see the correlation between the black (or African-American) nurse and creative individuals (Jazz musicians certainly come to mind), where the exploitation of minority artists is disguised as a simple attempt (and thus denial by copyright) to enjoy culture. The cry of “culture and creativity are being killed” is proclaimed loud and strong, without even a simple indication of who actually produces this culture. There’s also an allusion to copyright’s relationship to labor, which brings to mind NYU Prof Andrew Ross and his writings on below-the-line labor and copyright (more here). Interesting and timely video indeed.