OT: The saga of Richard Prince

[single317dad]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY/others

Currently, Richard Prince is under fire for printing photos from other people's social media accounts without authorization and selling them for in the neighborhood of $100,000.

http://www.diyphotography.net/how-richard-prince-sells-other-peoples-instagram-photos-for-100000/

http://www.diyphotography.net/how-richard-prince-sells-other-peoples-instagram-photos-for-100000/

In the past 40 years, Prince has made his living stealing others' art, yet hasn't really paid a stiff penalty yet for his actions.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/richard-prince-sucks-136358

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/richard-prince-sucks-136358

Notice the use of the ®, which I'm sure is meant ironically.

https://paddle8.com/work/richard-prince/25662-catcher-in-the-rye

https://paddle8.com/work/richard-prince/25662-catcher-in-the-rye

A complete and exact reproduction of Catcher in the Rye, with the only addition:

“This is an artwork by Richard Prince. Any similarity to a book is coincidental and not intended by the artist.” © Richard Prince.

Possibly the biggest problem is that in Cariou v. Prince the 2nd District Court of Appeals mostly sided with Prince and the US Supreme Court will not hear the case. The "art" community stands firmly behind Prince while photographers, of course, tend to despise his works.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Cariou+v.+Prince

https://www.google.com/search?q=Cariou+v.+Prince

This Google result should list court opinions as well.

 

[quincy]

Trying to determine what is fair use and what is not has always been a tricky area of copyright law. That is why the copyright office recommends that anyone who wants to use another's copyrighted work get permission from the copyright holder first, this to avoid an infringement lawsuit. But there will always be artists who ignore that advice (like Cariou and Koons) to push the limits. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose.

Trying to determine if the use of another's work is a derivative (and therefore infringing) or transformative (and therefore not) requires an analysis by the courts that can result in different decisions made by different courts in different areas of the country, even when the facts presented seem similar.

The Cariou/Prince case in 2012 called on the same factors to be weighed by the Court as they are in all fair use cases: the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

And with transformative uses, what will be looked at by a court is whether the new work has added new meaning and new value to the original work.

Here is a link to Cariou v. Prince, with illustrative photos (the original work, the transformative work):
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/IP/2013_Cariou.pdf

And here is a link to the Copyright Office's summary of the case: http://copyright.gov/fair-use/summaries/cariou-prince-2dcir.2013.pdf

Stanford University Libraries provides through their site an informative look at fair use: http://fairuse.stanford.edu

Stanford also created a film that takes a humorous look at fair use, making use of Disney characters to illustrate their tale. I have provided the link before and if I can locate the direct link to it, I will add it.

 

[single317dad]

Found a direct link on Stanford's site:

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2007/03/fairy-use-tale

It's also on Youtube but I decided sharing the pirated version was going just a bit too far

 

[quincy]

Found a direct link on Stanford's site:

https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2007/03/fairy-use-tale

It's also on Youtube but I decided sharing the pirated version was going just a bit too far

Ah, yes. That is the video I was talking about. Thanks!

I forgot I said I was going to look for it.