the Second Circuit upset conventional thinking regarding the concept of “fair use” with wide ranging implications for artists and copyright owners. The Court held that Andy Warhol’s well-known “Prince Series” (fifteen silkscreen and pencil artworks) is not a “fair use” of the photograph that Warhol used as the source material for the series.
The controversy in
Goldsmith centers on a 1981 photograph of Prince taken by photographer Lynn Goldsmith. In 1984, Goldsmith’s agency licensed the photograph to Vanity Fair magazine for use as an artist reference.
2 Vanity Fair commissioned Andy Warhol to create an illustration of Prince for the magazine based on Goldsmith’s photograph. Unbeknownst to Goldsmith, however, Warhol also created a series of fifteen additional prints based on her photograph.
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Artists Beware Second Circuit Holds That Andy Warhol’s “Prince Series” Is Not a “Fair Use” of Copyrighted Photograph Thursday, April 29, 2021
Andy Warhol Found. for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith,
1 the Second Circuit upset conventional thinking regarding the concept of “fair use” with wide ranging implications for artists and copyright owners. The Court held that Andy Warhol’s well-known “Prince Series” (fifteen silkscreen and pencil artworks) is not a “fair use” of the photograph that Warhol used as the source material for the series.
The controversy in
Goldsmith centers on a 1981 photograph of Prince taken by photographer Lynn Goldsmith. In 1984, Goldsmith’s agency licensed the photograph to Vanity Fair magazine for use as an artist reference.
Over the weekend, some new details dripped out concerning one of the more prominent attractions coming to the big Essex Crossing project. The 1.9 million square foot mixed use development near the Williamsburg Bridge is scheduled to break ground next spring. At its gala Saturday night, Andy Warhol Museum Director Eric Shiner told guests that […]
A portrait of Prince by Andy Warhol based on a photograph by Lynn Goldsmith
Lawyers working on behalf of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts have filed an en banc petition with the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit asking that they reconsider a recent ruling that could leave appropriation artists scratching their heads and emptying their bank accounts.
The three-judge panel decided Andy Warhol’s
Prince Series, 16 vibrant silkscreens sourced from a black-and-white portrait taken by the celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith, did not constitute “fair use” of the image. A lower court had already ruled against Goldsmith, saying Warhol’s work had given the image a “different character” and transformed Prince from a “vulnerable, uncomfortable person to an iconic, larger-than-life figure”.
Mon, Apr 12th 2021 12:01pm
Cathy Gellis
This decision, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts v. Goldsmith, came out only a few weeks ago, yet before the Supreme Court ruled in Google v. Oracle. In light of that latter decision it s not clear that this one is still good law. Then again, it s not clear it ever was.
The decision is the latest by a Court of Appeal eviscerating fair use. I recently wrote about the Ninth Circuit s ruling in Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. ComicMix, which also undermined fair use. To be fair, this latest one is perhaps a little less egregious. In this case, for instance, the copyright holder the court ruled in favor of is still alive while the defending party (referred in the decision as AWF) is the successor of someone who is dead. Whereas in the Dr. Seuss case it was the other way around, with the court going out of its way to let the successor to a dead person s copyrights stick it to a live creator trying to make new works the dead person was never g