Attorney Articles
Law360 Features Farmer on Warhol Copyright Battle
October 6, 2022 - Law360.com
Jana Farmer (Partner-White Plains, NY) is quoted in "4 Things To Know About The Warhol Copyright Battle" published in Law360 on October 6, 2022. The article is a quick guide on the first fair use case involving creative works coming before the Supreme Court in decades and slated for oral arguments in October 2022. In contesting the second circuit's ruling that Warhol's "Prince Series" did not make fair use of a copyrighted photograph, the Warhol Foundation contends the ruling contradicts the high court's precedent, where the justices have "repeatedly made clear" that a work can be transformative when it conveys a different meaning from the pre-existing work. Acknowledging that the Supreme Court's affirming the second circuit's ruling could potentially "chill" artists from creating derivative works by building or commenting on previous works, Jana points out that in art, one needs to borrow enough to make the viewer understand the source material commented on. She also notes the case involves first amendment protections and "calls into question exactly what the role of judges should be in deciding cases that involve visual art…" Jana's September 30, 2022, Wilson Elser Art Law Perspectives blog post "Considerations of Copyright and First Amendment Rights in Appropriation Art" provides a more in-depth case study of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith litigation poised to have far-reaching consequences on artists, photographers and those who incorporate the works of others into the content they create.