Will textualism save our copyright planet? Warhol Fdn v. Lynn Goldsmith headed to SCOTUS
Images of Goldsmith and Warhol at issue.
The U.S. Supreme Court will review a ruling that an Andy Warhol print infringed a copyrighted photograph taken by photographer, Lynn Goldsmith, of the late musician, Prince.
We certainly hope--as much as one can hope for anything these days--that SCOTUS cleans up the wasteland that has become of "fair use" interpretation.
One would think, and hope I suppose, that with many of the sitting justices adhering to textualism, they will fully jettison the nonsensical "transformativeness" test that has plagued us like a really bad case of Covid since the mid-1990s.
Docs here, via ...
Podcast: Stephanie Drawdy and Sergio Munoz Sarmiento on All Things Art and Law
Marcel Duchamp archives now online, free of charge
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Association Marcel Duchamp have digitized their vast archives of material on the Dadaist and placed it online, where it is free to all. Enjoy!
The Art & Law Coloring Book
If you have kids at home and want them to do something fun and educational, try the Art & Law Coloring Book, an ongoing project by The Art & Law Program. Really a great collection of drawings by great artists, including:
Emma Jane Bloomfield Damien Davis Molly Dilworth João Enxuto Soda Jerk Clare Kambhu Alexandra Lerman Erica Love Douglas Melini Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento Melinda Shades Elisabeth Smolarz Gabriel Sosa Alfred Steiner Valerie Suter
Happy coloring!
What are NFTs and what does it mean to own one?
If you're confused as to what the hell NFTs are, particularly art NFTs, here's a new article by Alfred Steiner that pretty much walks you through and safely out of the NFT hell.
In his article, Steiner explains what NFTs are and what it means to own one. He also discusses why that meaning of ownership—which may appear novel to many—isn’t new at all when considered against the backdrop of the market for conceptual art. Steiner concludes with some observations about how NFTs may be good and bad for the art industry.
At a retrospective exhibition of works by artist Amedeo Modigliani in Bonn, at least one of the paintings is said to be fake. The case is under investigation. Art expert Henrik Hanstein, managing partner at one of the leading art auction houses in Europe, explains in an interview:
This has to do with Modigliani himself, who certainly didn’t live the kind of orderly life that every art cataloger hopes for – he didn’t register or photograph every painting. Modigliani’s estate was scattered very quickly in all directions and it quickly became a kind of Bohemian myth and, thus, an easy target for imitators.
Richard Posner, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, has just posted a blog entry, The Future of Newspapers, where he outlines the impact of our current economic situation on the newspaper industry. Although not directly related to art his post is crucial not only to blogs like Clancco and other art blogs, but also artist websites that hyperlink to newspaper and journal articles, directly or by paraphrasing an articles content. In his blog, Posner ends his entry by arguing that news service providers such as Reuters and the Associated Press should be able to bar access to their content if we believe in “professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.”
Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, might be necessary to keep free riding on content financed by online newspapers from so impairing the incentive to create costly news-gathering operations that news services like Reuters and the Associated Press would become the only professional, nongovernmental sources of news and opinion.
Against our own interests, we have to agree with Judge Posner. For an alternative viewpoint on Judge Posner’s arguments, see Techdirt’s Mike Masnick.
The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges Coadum Advisers Inc. raised $30 million by promising investors returns as high as 6 percent per month. The SEC contends that these fraudulent investments financed a towering sculpture in the Maryland mountains depicting three New York City firefighters raising the US flag at Ground Zero. In hopes of repaying the defrauded investors, the 40-foot bronze statue unveiled in November 2007 at the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Md., is for sale.
From today’s Boston Globe, a major conference to strategize the return of Nazi-looted art:
Government officials from around 49 countries, dozens of non-governmental groups and Jewish representatives will meet in Prague this week to review current practices. They are likely to sign a new agreement to step up restitution efforts.
The task of restituting Nazi-looted works is an epic one. The Nazis formed a bureaucracy devoted to looting and they plundered a total of 650,000 art and religious objects from Jews and other victims, the Jewish Claims Conference estimates.
Anyone know Danish law? The Little Mermaid has brought a bit of legal conflict to a little town in Michigan.
According to City Manager George Bosanic, the city was notified by letter from the Artists Rights Society (The ARS represents more than 50,000 artists and their copyrights) in New York City, representing the estate of Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen, saying the statue is illegal and may have to be removed.
According to Michigan’s Daily News, Eriksen created the original “Little Mermaid” statue in 1913 as a tribute to Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. Sitting at the harbor in Copenhagen, Denmark, the statue draws an estimated 1.5 million visitors a year.
The director for ARS said the managers of the estate of Eriksen want the statue to be removed since no permission was granted to create a replica, and that even if the statue may not be an exact replica of the original the pose and name are the same, showing it was at least attempting to replicate Denmark’s version.
Below is artist Chapman Kelley’s response and reply brief to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, filed on June 12, 2009, arguing that the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois erred in finding that Chapman’s Wildflower Works was not protected by the Visual Artist’s Rights Act of 1990, and that the District Court should have awarded Chapman damages in finding the Chicago Park District liable for breach of contract.
I agree with Donn Zaretsky that this case, along with the Mass MoCA v. Buchel case, are of grave import to contemporary artists. In fact, two strong pro-artist rulings in both cases can simultaneously revive the nearly-gutted VARA statute and counter the Phillps v. Pembroke decision which denied VARA protection to site-specific works.
With a bit of luck Kelley could very well end up with three Seventh Circuit judges whose rationale and intellectual pin-point precision is unmatched: Richard A. Posner, Frank H. Easterbrook, and Diane P. Wood. Let’s cross our fingers!
Kelley is represented pro bono by Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
A notebook full of Pablo Picasso’s sketches worth several million pounds (valued at 7-10 million euros or $9.7 million-$13.9 million) stolen from the Musée national Picasso Paris.
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