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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.
Why Andy Warhol’s ‘Prince Series,’ the Subject of a Long-Term Copyright Dispute, Should Be Considered Fair Use After All
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The original Lynn Goldsmith photograph and Andy Warhol s Prince portrait of the musician, as reproduced in court documents.
Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit declared that a notable group of Andy Warhol paintings his famed “Prince Series” infringed the copyright of the photographer whose image served as the basis for the body of work.
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The Andy Warhol Foundation (AWF) wants a US federal court to revisit a decision finding that the late artist’s series of Prince images infringed a photographer’s copyright.
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Prince, Google, Oracle, Andy Warhol, foundation, Second Circuit, Lynn Goldsmith, Supreme Court, fair use
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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”.