- In milestone, SpaceX 'catches' megarocket booster after test flight
- In a first, SpaceX 'catches' megarocket booster after test flight
- Bangladeshi Hindus shrug off attack worries to celebrate festival
- Ubisoft fears assassin's hit over falling sales
- Vietnam, China hold talks on calming South China Sea tensions
- SpaceX will try to 'catch' giant Starship rocket shortly before landing
- Japan's former empress Michiko discharged after surgery: reports
- Japan's former empress Michiko discharged after surgey: reports
- 'Little Gregory' murder haunts France 40 years on
- Tariffs, tax cuts, energy: What is in Trump's economic plan?
- Amazon wants to be everything to everyone
- Jewish school in Canada hit by gunfire for second time
- With medical report Harris seeks to play health card against Trump
- China-EU EV tariff talks in Brussels end with 'major differences': Beijing
- Buried Nazi past haunts Athens on liberation anniversary
- Harris to release medical report confirming fitness for presidency: campaign
- Nobel prize a timely reminder, Hiroshima locals say
- China offers $325 bn in fiscal stimulus for ailing economy
- Small Quebec company dominates one part of NHL hockey: jerseys
- Boeing to cut 10% of workforce as it sees big Q3 loss
- Want to film in Paris? No sexism allowed
- US, European markets rise as investors weigh rates, earnings
- In Colombia, children trade plastic waste for school supplies
- JPMorgan Chase profits top estimates, bank sees 'resilient' US economy
- Little progress at key meet ahead of COP29 climate summit
- 'Party atmosphere': Skygazers treated to another aurora show
- Kyrgyzstan opens rare probe into glacier destruction
- European Mediterranean states discuss Middle East, migration
- Thunberg leads pro-Palestinian, climate protest in Milan
- Stock markets diverge before China weekend briefing
- EU questions shopping app Temu over illegal products risk
- Han Kang's books sell out in South Korea after Nobel win
- Shanghai markets sink ahead of briefing on mixed day for Asia
- Investors, analysts eye bigger China stimulus at Saturday briefing
- Musk unveils robotaxi, pledges it 'before 2027'
- At least 11 dead in Florida but Hurricane Milton not as bad as feared
- Asian markets mixed after Wall St drop, Shanghai dips before briefing
- Automaker Stellantis says CEO will retire in 2026
- Musk's promised robotaxi unveil delayed
- On US coast, wind power foes embrace 'Save the Whales' argument
- At least 10 dead in Florida after Hurricane Milton spawns tornadoes
- Internet Archive reels from 'catastrophic' cyberattack, data breach
- Wall Street stocks retreat from records on US inflation data
- Israel strikes central Beirut, killing 22
- Solar storm could impact US hurricane recovery efforts: agency
- Delta eyes Election Day travel pullback as profits climb
- Florida battered by hurricane, floods but spared 'worst-case scenario'
- UK's William and Kate in first joint public engagement since cancer treatment
- Over 200 women in legal talks with Harrods over Fayed abuse claims
- A very stiff breeze: BBC says sorry for 20,000 kph wind forecast
US Supreme Court rules Warhol image violated photo copyright
An Andy Warhol print of the late pop star Prince violated the copyright of the photographer who took the original image, the US Supreme Court said Thursday, in a ruling with important implications for the art market.
In a case that spiralled around the hot-button issue of whether a derivative work of art is a mere copy or fully transformative, the court ruled that celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith should have earned a fee when the Andy Warhol Foundation licensed "Orange Prince," a silk screen print image of Prince, for use by Vanity Fair magazine.
In their 7-2 ruling, the court majority skirted the argument long swirling around Warhol's creations of whether "Orange Prince" stood alone as a work of art even though it was based on Goldsmith's photo.
Instead, it focused on how the Warhol Foundation used it: making money licensing it to Vanity Fair as a portrait of Prince, in the same way other magazines used Goldsmith's identically posed black and white photograph.
In that instance, the court said the Foundation's commercial licensing arrangement was not a "fair use" of her work, and that Goldsmith should have been paid.
While narrow, that view could have broad ramifications as technologies, especially generative artificial intelligence, make adapting and altering original works and styles easy, threatening the livelihoods of artists.
- Is it original art? -
There was no judgment against Warhol himself, who died in 1987 after a career of transforming photographs of celebrities and objects into prints that helped define the pop art of the 1950s and 1960s.
In 1984 Goldsmith was paid a one-time use fee of $400 when Vanity Fair commissioned the artist to create a purple-tinted image of Prince that was derived from one of her photos.
But after Prince died in 2016, Warhol's foundation licensed to Vanity Fair another image of the musician -- the "Orange Prince" -- made from the same Goldsmith photo.
The Foundation was paid $10,250 to license the image to Conde Nast, the publisher that owns Vanity Fair, but Goldsmith got nothing.
She sued, claiming her copyright on the original photo was infringed.
In the high court's hearing on the case in October 2022, the Foundation argued in court that Warhol's work was "transformative" -- an original piece infused with a new meaning or message.
That, the Foundation said, was permitted under what is known as the "fair use" doctrine in copyright law.
Lisa Blatt, a lawyer for Goldsmith, disagreed, arguing that the initial payment for the photograph recognized her rights.
"Warhol got the picture in 1984 because Miss Goldsmith was paid and credited," Blatt said.
She said ruling against Goldsmith would "decimate" the art of photography by killing the photographer's incentive to create.
If the court backed Vanity Fair, Blatt added, "Copyrights will be at the mercy of copycats."
In her majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor stressed that they were not judging Warhol's work used in other situations.
In this specific situation, she wrote, "Goldsmith's original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists."
Fair use of an image or other work of art is acceptable if the use "has a purpose and character that is sufficiently distinct from the original," the court said.
In the "Orange Prince" case, however, both Goldsmith and the Andy Warhol Foundation had the same commercial purpose in the licensing of the image, it said.
- 'Avatar of transformative copying' -
In a sharply worded dissent, however, Justice Elena Kagan said her fellow justices did not comprehend, or care, about Warhol's artistic achievement.
All artists borrow, copy and transform to an extent, she said.
"Andy Warhol is the avatar of transformative copying," she added.
Ruling in favor of Goldsmith's copyright claim "will stifle creativity of every sort," she said. "It will impede new art and music and literature."
The Andy Warhol Foundation said it disagreed with the ruling. But it welcomed the fact that the court did not question the legality of Warhol's "Prince" series or other works.
M.Mendoza--CPN