"At the same time, other Justices seemed more comfortable interpreting Warhol’s works. Justice Sotomayor took it for granted that Warhol’s works commented on Prince’s 'superstar status' and 'his consumer sort of life.' The idea that Warhol’s art depicted the flattening of celebrity was repeated so many times over the course of the morning that it flattened out, too. Justice Kagan recognized that Warhol 'took a bunch of photographs and he made them mean something completely different.' Even Chief Justice Roberts repeated, rather uncritically, the foundation’s view that Warhol sent a 'message about the depersonalization of modern culture and celebrity status and the iconic' and showed 'a particular perspective on the Pop era.'"
From "Controversy/In a case litigating Andy Warhol’s use of a photograph of Prince, the Supreme Court wades into the uncomfortable territory where art criticism and copyright law collide" by Liza Batkin (NYRB).
"These comments suggest that at least some of the Justices may reject the
lower court’s decision against Warhol, which was based on the idea that
judges couldn’t, or shouldn’t, make judgments on art. But they also
expose an irony at the heart of this case. A win for Warhol would
protect an artistic tradition dedicated to exposing the artifice of
authorship and the slipperiness, or absence, of meaning. 'If you want to
know all about Andy Warhol,' the artist once said, 'just look at the
surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s
nothing behind it.' Warhol also said that his art was 'junk' and that he
liked repetition because 'the more you look at the same exact thing,
the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel.' But
to prove that his prints say something different than the Goldsmith
pictures, Warhol’s foundation has distilled from them a single, settled,
unsubtle message about celebrity and consumerism."
I wonder what percentage of New York Review of Books readers will recognize the article title — "Controversy" — as the title of a Prince album?
By the way, it's interesting to run across "Ronnie, Talk to Russia" — 40 years after Prince sang it. "Ronnie talk to Russia before its too late/Before they blow up the world/Don't you blow up my world."
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I still say, limit the copyright in a photograph to the photographic elements contributed by the photographer, and much of the problem is solved. The photographer did not design Prince's face, cut his hair, or trim his mustache, which are the things Warhol actually took. She may have dressed Prince, but the clothing either is absent from the Warhol silkscreens or is so abstracted as to be trivial. The lighting is wiped entirely away - Warhol's screens do not use realistic skin coloring, and presents Prince's face more as an outline than a three-dimensional object with shading. The photographer is effectively trying to claim copyright on Prince's appearance (at least as of that particular day), which is an overreach that does not require a "transformative" determination to get at.
Serious question - if Warhol loses, how is an artist to create a portrait of a dead person, whose looks can only be accessed through a photograph?
Ronnie did talk to the Russians, in their language.
Indeed, tommyesq, indeed. Particularly when copyright can last eons beyond the life of photographer or subject with no requirement for publication or filing. How can an artist use a photo of a giraffe for reference when painting a giraffe? What is transformative enough? How can we have an artistic culture built around the idea that you should sue or be sued to find out what rules apply to you and your creation? How can you inquire about the rights of this or that, even if you want to get permission? The rules are made for Disney, not the unknown artist, and they want the rules to all go their way.
By the way, it's interesting to run across "Ronnie, Talk to Russia" — 40 years after Prince sang it. "Ronnie talk to Russia before its too late/Before they blow up the world/Don't you blow up my world."
Ronnie showed everyone the right way to deal with Russia.
Trump did an even better job.
Do you think Prince would have supported Biden?
There's an easy way to resolve this whole mess: return copyrights to their original 7 years.
Warhol is dead. Prince is dead.
Limit copyrights to 10 years.
Why is this tedious little spat in front of the Supreme Court?
Weird Al adds plenty of new meaning to songs by replacing the lyrics, but he still has to pay for the recording rights. (He also always asks permission from the original artists, even if they aren't the copyright holders -- especially after his famous misunderstanding with Coolio. Which is why he never did any Prince songs, because Prince always turned him down.)
Yes, copyright should be the same term as a patent and all this stupidity would be ended. the great great grand kids of Disney deserve nothing of his art work, only his remaining estate as heir.
Extension of copyright is just an example of how monetary donations corrupt the legislature.
It seems to me that if Warhol is so wonderful and his "message" is so important, perhaps he could have come up with the scratch to pay for using someone else's photograph.
Or paid Prince for another.
What am I missing here?
A good friend, a now-retired lawyer, has a daughter who is a moderately successful artist in Vermont. She specializes in natural landscapes, and has a distinctive style. One of her finest paintings is of a stretch of Lake Champlain.
My friend was travelling for his work and had dinner with another lawyer and his wife, who is also, as it turns out, an artist. They of course talked about his daughter's artwork.Sometime thereafter it was brought to the attention of the daughter that someone was selling a very close copy of her painting on her website--the wife of the other lawyer.
My friend demanded that the thief cease and desist, and asked that the offending painting be removed from the website. The other lawyer argued that it is a natural scene, and that his wife was just as likely to paint a scene from that spot as the daughter was, and that in all likelihood the paintings would look similar.
It was then pointed out that each of the paintings had three islands. The actual scene had only two; the daughter had added an imaginary island for "balance." The copy was taken off the website.
Without plagiarism there would be no culture.
Why do we need a Supreme Court to deal with issues like this? Let the relevant Circuit Court decision be final as to the parties.
“ Without plagiarism there would be no culture.”
Hear, hear. “Cultural appropriation” is just a really dumb phrase meaning “culture.”
very unlikely that the SCOTUS will want to get involved in all of this. But the larger point is that the Dems running the House's J6 escapade forget that what goes around will come around, and sooner than they think. The new House run by the Reps in Jan 2023 is quite likely to pursue its own political witch hunts, but focused on Joe and Hunter. It will be quite a show, and far more interesting than J6. Pressing these subpoenas will just give the new House committees to be formed in 2023 a stronger basis to shove their own down the two Bidens' throats, to say nothing of their various acolytes and business partners.
very unlikely that the SCOTUS will want to get involved in all of this. But the larger point is that the Dems running the House's J6 escapade forget that what goes around will come around, and sooner than they think. The new House run by the Reps in Jan 2023 is quite likely to pursue its own political witch hunts, but focused on Joe and Hunter. It will be quite a show, and far more interesting than J6. Pressing these subpoenas will just give the new House committees to be formed in 2023 a stronger basis to shove their own down the two Bidens' throats, to say nothing of their various acolytes and business partners.
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