The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts filed a preemptive lawsuit regarding Warhol’s appropriation of a photograph of the late musician Prince Rogers Nelson, also known as Prince. The Foundation’s counterparty is Colorado-based photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who, in 1981, took a photograph of Prince.

In April, another group of graffiti artists sent a demand letter to McDonald’s, this time threatening legal action in connection with a promotional video produced by McDonald’s to advertise a new product in the Netherlands. This dispute is yet another example of the curious place that graffiti art occupies in the copyright arena.

We have continuously followed stories in the news and in the courts about the continuing efforts of the art market to deal with the problem of forgeries.  From the Knoedler scandal to the concerns about counterfeit Old Masters being peddled on the European market, this issue is clearly not going away anytime soon.  Today, we take note of developments in three more cases that shine a spotlight on this ongoing challenge.

This long-running dispute revolves around a piece of property in Queens, known as 5Pointz, which once served as a remarkable repository of a huge amount of graffiti art. Gerald Wolkoff, who co-owns the site along with other related entities, allowed artists to create works on the site’s old industrial buildings; indeed, one artist, Jonathan Cohen, was even appointed as a volunteer “curator,” selecting artists and setting community standards. 5Pointz attracted nationally and internationally renowned graffiti artists, tourists, and fans for years, until, in 2013, the owners announced plans to demolish the existing structures at the site to make way for a residential complex.

A New York appeals court issued a ruling in a matrimonial case that could have important implications for how courts will evaluate questions of title to artwork. The case serves as a reminder that clear and thorough documentation at the time of an art transaction can help avoid disputes down the road.

This blog follows important legal developments in the copyright arena, including cases regarding “copyrightability,” i.e., the threshold question of whether a work is entitled to copyright. Last summer, we wrote about a copyrightability case that had advanced all the way to the Supreme Court. Last week, the Supreme Court issued its decision in that case, and in the process provided some clarity on an issue of interest to those in the art, fashion, and design arenas.

Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a $450,000 jury award in a case against a businessman who commissioned knockoff copies of several of the artist’s sculptures. The plaintiff in the case, California artist Donald Wakefield, is known for his large-scale stone and metal sculptural works, each of which is one-of-a-kind.  According to court filings, in 2004 he contacted a handful of real-estate developers whom he believed might be interested in purchasing some of his sculptures.  Hprovided these prospective buyers with information about his work, and he pointed them toward his website displaying photographs of his creations.  One of the businesses he solicited was Olen Properties, owned by billionaire Igor Olenicoff.

While we often write about high-profile litigation over Nazi-looted artworks, it’s worth noting that in recent months, there have been a number of important examples of voluntary restitution, as parties increasingly seek to resolve such disputes outside the courtroom. In January, a German food company, Dr. Oetker, took steps to return four artworks from its corporate art collection whose provenances had been traced to victims of the Nazi regime.

In November, we wrote about increasing scrutiny of multiple Old Master artworks that have recently come under suspicion as potential forgeries.  And in January, we posted about a federal lawsuit Sotheby’s has filed in connection with the scandal; in that suit, Sotheby’s seeks to recover sale proceeds from a collector who sold one of the fake works at a 2012 Sotheby’s auction.  Now, the fallout continues; in February, Sotheby’s filed a second suit over another artwork, this time in the U.K. court system; as with the first suit, the auction house’s goal is to claw back the proceeds of a sale of a work sold through Sotheby’s that has since been shown to be a fake.

Last week, a New York judge granted summary judgment for the estate of an art collector on multiple claims against an art advisor who brokered the sale of the collector’s Basquiat work and, unbeknownst to the seller, pocketed a hefty profit.  See Schulhof v. Jacobs, Docket No. 157797/2013 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co.).

A recent conference in Geneva reflects an attempt by private art-market actors to raise awareness and address the problems of illicit trafficking of art and antiquities.  While such illegal activity in the art market is hardly limited to Switzerland, the nation’s freeports and custom-free zones make it particularly vulnerable to attempts to circumvent international laws.  And the Geneva Freeport specifically is reeling from recent negative publicity—including the feud between Yves Bouvier and Dmitry Rybolovlev, the discovery of an allegedly Nazi-looted Modigliani painting, and the seizure of looted Syrian antiquities. 

In November, we wrote about increasing scrutiny of multiple Old Master artworks that have recently come under suspicion as potential forgeries.  Now, federal litigation has commenced in connection with the scandal, as Sotheby’s attempts to recover sale proceeds from a collector who sold one of the fake works at a 2012 Sotheby’s auction.

Andrew Hall, a hedge-fund manager and art collector, filed suit against Lorettann Gascard, a former art-history professor at Franklin Pierce University, and her son, Nikolas, alleging that the Gascards sold him twenty-four artworks by the famed artist Leon Golub that actually were forgeries. The Gascards are now firing back that Hall alone should be held responsible for his failure to conduct adequate pre-sale diligence; a common refrain among accused fraudsters looking to cast blame back on sophisticated art collectors, like Hall.

Under a recently enacted federal law, foreign states have been granted sovereign immunity in controversies over the temporary exhibition of artworks and cultural objects on loan to the United States, The Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, signed at the end of last year by President Obama, grants immunity from federal or state-court jurisdiction to foreign governments, where an artwork or cultural object from that country has been imported for a temporary display at a U.S. cultural or educational institution.

A new lawsuit was filed in New York federal court in mid-January against the famed Getty Museum over a series of negotiations regarding an Italian collection of classical art. The plaintiffs are entities who claim they spent considerable time and effort preparing the collection for sale, laying the groundwork for a deal, and facilitating delicate communications between the Getty, Italian officials, and the collection’s owners; but were later frozen out of those other parties’ dealings, leaving the plaintiffs empty handed.

Richard Prince is no stranger to controversy; indeed, it’s arguably an essential element of his art.  We’ve written in recent years about several copyright infringement cases against Prince involving his practice of “appropriation” of others’ artworks as part of his own.

Recent months have seen a number of lawsuits or threatened suits by independent artists seeking to protect their work from alleged unauthorized copying by retailers and other consumer brands.  Another similar suit has been filed, this time against clothing and accessories chain Francesca’s, as well as two of Francesca’s suppliers, plus various “Doe Defendants” (i.e., defendants that will be named after discovery) involved in the design, manufacture, distribution, and marketing of the allegedly infringing products.

We’ve written before about the bitter feud between Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev and his former art dealer, Swiss businessman Yves Bouvier.  Our previous post contains more detail, but in short, in 2014, the two had a highly-publicized falling-out after Rybolovlev accused Bouvier of overcharging him—to the tune of as much as $1 billion—for dozens of artworks that Bouvier helped him to acquire.

As we reported recently, the Second Circuit sided with parody-handbag producer My Other Bag in a trademark-infringement suit launched by high-end fashion brand Louis Vuitton.   The Second Circuit had upheld a district court finding that the use of the Louis Vuitton mark on inexpensive canvas tote bags was transformative parody and protected as fair use.

We’ve written before about conceptual artist Cady Noland, whose works command huge prices in the market, but who has a history of being highly particular about how her creations are installed, maintained, exhibited, and sold on the secondary market.  This tendency has resulted, on at least two recent occasions, in litigation over her disavowal of previous works.  Now, both cases have been resolved, but without significant judicial examination of the contours of an artist’s right to disavow her own creations.