New York Metro partner Adam Bialek and law clerk Taylor Bialek co-authored “Transforming Fair Use in Copyright Infringement: Goldsmith v. Warhol” for the July-August 2021 edition of the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal. The article examines the juxtaposition between art law and copyright law, as described and investigated in the recent U.S. Court of Appeals (second circuit) decision in The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Lynn Goldsmith and Lynn Goldsmith, Ltd.

The case revolved around prints and illustrations created by the late Andy Warhol and the photographs on which they are based. The court ultimately decided that Warhol did not make a fair use of the photo because his images were not “transformative” but were instead “derivative.” Adam, Sarah and Taylor discuss the implications of such a ruling - the court’s “inherently subjective” judgments regarding artists’ intended meaning of their works will make an already complex concept of fair use even more difficult to navigate for an artist.  

Read the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal article.