Thursday, January 29, 2009
"Color This Area of the Law Gray"
The Wall Street Journal posted an article today discussing the trend in copyright law to find artwork, such as the art of Jeff Koons, transformative when the work can be characterized as a comment on previous works. The article draws attention to a pending lawsuit concerning whether Richard Prince had transformed Patrick Cariou's photography when Prince scanned Cariou's pictures, printed them on a canvas, and then defaced the pictures. The article notes that judicial characterization of whether art is transformative is a "gray" area in copyright law that serves an important function - mainly flexibility.
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I think this comment by a UMich law prof about the difference in outcome between the two Jeff Koons copyright cases is interesting in that it both addresses the realities of litigation and speaks to what Prof. Davis said about the attitude of the entrepreneurs seeking VC funding: "Jessica Litman, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, claimed that part of the reason Mr. Koons lost the first case but won the second was that "the first time he came into court with a lot of art-world attitude about 'I'm the artist, I can do whatever I want,' and the second time he made a more reasonable statement about the kind of message that appropriation art sends. That goes a long way." "
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