Source: CNN

What are the legal consequences for basing an artistic creation on a previous artwork? This question arises because, throughout the history of art, some artists had commonly extended this practice without any conflict, in most of the cases. However, last May, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that may clarify the scenario in the U.S. art industry in regard to intellectual property rights.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, issued a ruling in favor of the photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who seven years ago, initiated a legal process alleging that the Andy Warhol Foundation had infringed her copyrights by selling a piece from the series of silkscreen prints of singer Prince, based on an image taken by Goldsmith.

In 1984, Vanity Fair asked Andy Warhol to create a piece to accompany an article entitled Purple Fame, so the renowned artist took the black and white image that Goldsmith had taken of Price in 1981 and injected it with purple color, thus created another immortal emblem of popular culture. At the time, the magazine agreed to give credits to Goldsmith, and paid him $400 as a license to use the singer’s portrait as an artistic reference.

 

Subsequently, after Price’s death in 2016, Vanity Fair published a special edition as a tribute to the singer, where it used a new image from Warhol’s series -Orange Prince-, but this time, the magazine paid exclusively to the Andy Warhol Foundation, without crediting or compensating Goldsmith; which started Goldsmith’s lawsuit against the Foundation that owns the Warhol silkscreen series.

Then, by a 7 – 2 votes majority, the Court rejected the Andy Warhol Foundation’s arguments that consisted in the argument that the work had been sufficiently original not to raise copyright issues. In turn, Justice Elena Kagan, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts voted in a contrary sense and mentioned that such a ruling was a dangerous precedent, that could stifle creativity and frustrate the expression of new ideas.

Despite the polarized opinions that this ruling has left in the legal forum, it is important to note that the Supreme Court accepted the case to set a precedent on the scope of the “fair use defense” doctrine in copyright law, which allows the use of copyrighted work in some circumstances, without the authorization of the author.

Also, this decision overturns a 2019 ruling by a Manhattan judge who concluded that Warhol’s versions were different enough from Goldsmith’s photograph as to transcend the copyright of the photographer, whose material has been included on nearly 100 album covers since the 1960s.