A copyright infringement dispute now pending in a California federal court is raising interesting questions about how copyright applies to tattoo art—as well as some familiar questions about transformative use of photographs. 

In a major win for investors with losses totaling over $5.5 million, Grossman LLP has defeated summary judgment in a securities fraud case arising from “a Ponzi scheme built on a false promise to buy and resell tickets to high-profile events like the Broadway musical ‘Hamilton.’”

Grossman LLP is pleased to announce that Webster D. McBride has joined the Firm as Counsel and Maria Angela Brusco has joined the Firm as an Associate.

An infringement case pending in a California federal court raises some interesting questions about how copyright law applies in the context of interactive art installations—an important topic in an art market that is increasingly exploring these innovative forms and mediums.

In a major win, Grossman LLP has obtained summary judgment for our client in a long-running title dispute involving a Marc Chagall painting that was part of the fraudulent schemes of disgraced art dealer Ezra Chowaiki.

The criminal case involving disgraced art dealer Inigo Philbrick has now progressed to the sentencing phase, where a judge will decide what punishment is appropriate for Philbrick.  In the process, the court will likely consider larger questions about how the justice system should approach sentencing for art crimes, particularly in light of a string of high-profile art fraud prosecutions in recent years.

We wrote recently about the Warhol Foundation’s petition to the Supreme Court, asking the Court to review a case involving claims by photographer Lynn Goldsmith.  Goldsmith sued over Warhol’s use of a photograph in creating a series of artworks, and the Foundation argued that Goldsmith’s claims should fail due to the fair use doctrine, which provides a defense to copyright infringement claims.  A federal district court sided with the Foundation, but the Second Circuit reversed, and in the process issued an opinion that further complicated the already-complex landscape of fair use case law, especially as applied to artists whose creations incorporate, appropriate, reference, or otherwise make use of works by others. 

Famed artist Jeff Koons is no stranger to litigation; indeed, it might be argued that his litigation history is part of his artistic legacy.  We’ve written before about his works, which frequently test the boundaries of copyright infringement and fair use (see here for one example) and his fabrication and sales practices which have also sparked dispute (see here).  Now Koons is back in court as a defendant in a federal lawsuit by sculptor Michael Hayden over his reproduction of a Hayden creations in one of his famous “Made In Heaven” artworks.  The case promises to raise many familiar but difficult questions about the extent to which artists can incorporate other creators’ work into their own.

In late February, Grossman LLP’s Kate Lucas talked to undergraduate students at Duke Kunshan University about her work in art law. 

Since 2017, we’ve been following the federal lawsuit between the Andy Warhol Foundation and photographer Lynn Goldsmith; you can read our previous posts about it here, here, and here.  A few months ago, a revised opinion from the Second Circuit added further complexity to the story.  And now, the Warhol Foundation has asked the Supreme Court to give its opinion on whether the fair use defense protects the Foundation from Goldsmith’s copyright infringement claims. 

The team at Grossman LLP has just recovered $3 million in satisfaction of a judgment that the firm obtained for an art collector defrauded by an art dealer in connection with the sale of a Pablo Picasso painting. 

This week, the Grossman LLP team obtained a complete dismissal of a lawsuit filed by NBCUniversal executive Ron Meyer against art dealer Susan Seidel.  Meyer’s claims focused on a 2001 art deal involving a painting, purportedly by famed abstract expressionist Mark Rothko, which turned out to be a forgery.

This week, the litigation team at Grossman LLP achieved a win for the Hirschl & Adler Galleries and its director in a suit arising out of the sale of a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. 

​In early 2021, the street artist known as Futura filed a lawsuit against the North Face Apparel Corp. (“NFA”) for unfair competition, alleging that NFA illegally adopted Futura’s iconic circular atom for its outerwear line called “FUTURELIGHT.”   Recently, NFA issued a public statement regarding the lawsuit, and NFA has committed to discontinuingthe use of their FUTURELIGHT logo out of deference to Futura.  However, the lawsuit remains unresolved and involves novel legal issues that could affect the landscape of trademark law. 

We have written often about the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), and in particular the emerging legal conversation about how VARA applies to street art.  Now, a recently-initiated case—against New York City and the NYPD—may break new ground on that topic.

A couple of years ago, we wrote about “Rabbit Town,” a “selfie tourism” theme park in Indonesia where visitors can take photographs set against fantastical backdrops.  The park charges admission for access to the park, which features several attractions that essentially recreate famous art installations from around the world, including works by Yayoi Kusama and imitations of scenes from the Museum of Ice Cream.  The Rabbit Town versions often have different titles and do not credit the original artist.  Now, Rabbit Town is facing a court order to destroy one of its attractions, an installation called “Love Light,” which is strikingly similar to Urban Light, a work by the late artist Chris Burden.  

The long-running dispute over a Pissarro painting has come to a close—yet again—after years of legal wrangling in multiple forums, and after a complex settlement arrangement collapsed in spectacular fashion.  As is sadly the case in many stories involving Nazi-era art litigation, there is no dispute that the artwork at issue here was outright looted by Nazi forces in Nazi-occupied France, yet the artwork will not return to the family from whom it was wrested.

Last week, the International Criminal Police Organization (better known as INTERPOL), an international organization that facilitates cooperation by law enforcement organizations around the globe, announced a new project that may be of interest to art collectors, dealers, and anyone involved in high-end art transactions.  INTERPOL has released a mobile application that allows a user to, among other things, quickly and conveniently determine whether a work of art appears in INTERPOL’s database of stolen artworks.  The app, called ID-Art, is free and available in several languages, and on Android or iOS mobile devices.

Samantha A. Daniels has experience representing and counseling clients in their commercial litigation and intellectual property disputes.