A copyright case over an Andy Warhol illustration provides “an unwitting commentary on what happens when courts decide what things mean,” jeanniesgersen writes.
.” It paid more than ten thousand dollars to the Andy Warhol Foundation, which holds the artist’s copyrights, for a license to use a different print from the series, “Orange Prince.” The image was published without any credit or payment to Goldsmith, who—seeing it for the first time and recognizing her work—claimed copyright infringement.
In Campbell, Souter wrote that the central question for assessing whether the second work is “transformative” is whether it “adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message.” The Warhol Foundation wants the Court to stick closely to those words. It asserts that Goldsmith’s naturalistic black-and-white photo depicts Prince as “fragile and vulnerable,” and seeks to “humanize” him.
Judging from oral argument, the Justices seemed to lean toward deciding for Goldsmith. Several of them seemed particularly concerned that deciding against her might result in upending the general understanding that an adaptation of a book into a movie or a television show is not fair use and requires payment to the author, even though Hollywood often adds new meanings—including altered plotlines, themes, and characters—to the original material.
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