​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.  

Since 2017, we’ve been following the federal lawsuit between the Andy Warhol Foundation and photographer Lynn Goldsmith.  In mid-2019, a federal judge in New York dismissed Goldsmith’s copyright infringement claims against the Foundation, ruling that a series of Warhol artworks based on an image taken by the photographer were protected as fair use.  But now, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed that decision, in an opinion that has potentially wide-reaching impacts for the Foundation, for appropriation art generally, and for anyone in the art world who is interested in the ongoing question of how courts handle the difficult concept of fair use.  

There has been a lot of buzz—okay, that’s an understatement—about NFT art lately, and it may feel confusing to those who hail from the more “traditional” art world.  Here at Grossman LLP, we’ve been intrigued by this phenomenon, and now this post aims to discuss some of the basics about NFTs and some widespread misconceptions about them.  We also offer some thoughts on how they may potentially impact the art market going forward.  

Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about some of the Supreme Court’s most significant art-related cases from 2020, and noted that we were awaiting the Court’s decision in a long-running dispute over the so-called Guelph Treasure.  In early February, the Court issued its ruling, dealing the plaintiffs, who are the heirs of a consortium of Jewish art dealers, a major blow in their attempt to seek redress for their ancestors’ loss.  

At the very end of 2020, Congress enacted new legislation that will provide a streamlined process for adjudicating small-claim copyright infringement cases.  The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 (the “CASE Act”), included as part of the COVID-19 Relief Bill, establishes a new Copyright Claims Board (“CCB”) to oversee claims of copyright infringement that do not exceed $30,000.  Some see this is an efficient solution for those seeking to adjudicate minor copyright disputes, while others view this legislation as a potential avenue for attacks on everyday internet users who may lack the resources to track and opt out of these proceedings.

As we leave 2020 behind, we’ve put together a brief update on some of the Supreme Court’s most significant 2020 decisions that have implications for the art world, as well as a couple of cases that have been argued but not yet decided.

At the beginning of the year, Grossman LLP achieved a summary-judgment victory on behalf of a Manhattan gallery in a title dispute concerning an Alexander Calder stabile. On December 15, 2020, Judd Grossman argued the appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and on December 23, the Court issued a decision affirming summary judgment in the gallery’s favor.

A painting by an American modernist artist that was stolen from a major corporate art collection over thirty-years ago and replaced with a skilled forgery will be returning home after more than two years of litigation.  

​At the conclusion of oral argument on December 2, 2020, Commercial Division Justice O. Peter Sherwood upheld Plaintiff Contrasto’s breach-of-contract claims by denying Defendant James Nachtwey’s motion to dismiss the complaint. 

Over the last few years, we’ve been following legal developments involving a rash of apparently forged Old Master paintings that have been discovered on the European art market.  This month, one litigant has indicated its intent to appeal a UK court’s decision regarding who should bear the brunt of the financial fallout from one of those fakes.

Last month, this blog wrote about several forfeiture complaints recently filed by the United States Department of Justice seeking to recover the illicit proceeds of the 1MDB scandal.  The complaints sought, among other things, the recovery of several high value works of art that had allegedly been used to launder the misappropriated 1MDB funds.  We noted that “[t]hese forfeiture complaints serve as a reminder that high-end art transactions are often viewed by white collar criminals as an effective method of money laundering.”  And now, a recently-released Senate report shows that Congress is taking these concerns very seriously and may soon take up legislation cracking down on money laundering in the art world. 

A recently filed lawsuit by the artist Pat Lipsky highlights an often-overlooked risk for New York galleries and auction houses exhibiting works online:  running afoul of New York’s Artist’s Authorship Rights Act (“AARA”).  That law—a precursor to the federal Visual Artists Rights Act (“VARA”) of 1990—gives artists in New York the legal right to claim or disclaim authorship of a work of art, and object to its display, publication or reproduction in an altered, defaced, mutilated, or modified form that could damage the artist’s reputation.  Unlike VARA, AARA protects not just the artist’s interests in the work itself, but also any reproductions of the work, even if no physical change has been made to the original work.

An ongoing challenge for art dealers, galleries, and auction houses, is guarding against the use of art transactions as a means of laundering the proceeds of criminal activity.  Money laundering is a federal crime that involves disguising the proceeds of a crime by integrating those proceeds into the legitimate financial system, often through a series of complex and confusing transactions designed to conceal the origin, source and ownership of the funds.  When money laundering is successful, it becomes difficult to distinguish illicit proceeds from legitimate financial resources, thus permitting funds to be used by criminals without detection.  Purchasing art is one way to conceal the source of illicit funds.  Several recently filed civil forfeiture complaints from the U.S. Department of Justice highlight the ongoing need to remain vigilant about money laundering in the context of art transactions.

This blog has written before about acclaimed conceptual artist Cady Noland, who has a reputation for being particular about how her works are installed, maintained, exhibited, and sold.  As our previous posts explain, she has even, on more than one occasion, disavowed an artwork she created, prompting litigation.  Now, a federal judge has issued a ruling in Noland’s most recent legal skirmish, dismissing her attempt to bring copyright infringement claims related to the restoration of one of her artworks.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 and the ensuing restrictions on businesses, there has been much discussion about whether, when, and how commercial tenants can break their leases or be relieved from rent-payment obligations when they are unable to conduct business on leased premises.  Last week, a Manhattan art gallery sued its landlord for declaring a default under the lease when the gallery failed to make its April rent payment, arguing that the lease was lawfully terminated on April 1 in light of the executive orders that restrict the operation of New York’s non-essential businesses.