Left, Andy Warhol photographed in Stockholm, Sweden in February 1968, before the debut of a retrospective of his work; right, the musician Prince, photographed in October 2009 in Paris. Both artists are under discussion in a case before the Supreme Court of the United States on aspects of copyright law and ‘fair use.’ Both images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The Warhol photo is credited to Lasse Olsson / Pressens bild and the Prince photo to Nicolas Genin. The Warhol photo is in the public domain in Sweden and the United States, according to Wikimedia Commons. The Prince photo is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
WASHINGTON (AP) – Andy Warhol and Prince held center stage in a copyright case before the Supreme Court on October 12 that veered from Cheerios and Mona Lisa analogies to Justice Clarence Thomas’ enthusiasm for the Purple Rain showman. Despite the light nature of the arguments at times involving two deceased celebrities, the issue before the court is a serious one for the art world: When should artists be paid for original work that is then transformed by others, such as a movie adaptation of a book?
