Back in August, we wrote about a new lawsuit against automotive giant General Motors, and its potential implications for graffiti art.  Now, the artist plaintiff in that case has at least partially prevailed in GM’s motion for summary judgment, clearing the way for a trial.

Over the years we’ve covered many stories about how the American copyright regime applies to graffiti art.  Now, a lawsuit against car manufacturer General Motors may test a new legal angle in this area of case law.

Earlier this year, federal district judge Frederic Block issued an opinion ordering the defendants to pay significant damages for their violations of the Visual Artists Rights Act, 17 U.S.C. § 106A (also known as VARA).  Now, Judge Block has denied the defendants’ request to reconsider his ruling, instead reaffirming and bolstering that earlier decision in advance of the defendants’ appeal to the Second Circuit.  

​Last week, a federal judge refused a request by Sesame Workshop—creator of classic children’s television show Sesame Street—to enjoin parts of a marketing campaign for an upcoming R-rated comedy film featuring a much darker take on puppets.

This blog writes often about copyright law, including defenses to copyright infringement claims, such as fair use.  One recent decision highlights the “de minimis” defense to copyright infringement, which recognizes that there are cases where a defendant may use someone else’s copyrighted material in a way that is so minor that it does not give rise to a cognizable claim. 

The oddly audacious copying of artwork at Rabbit Town illustrates a simple fact about artists who want to defend their intellectual property rights; that mission gets more complicated when an issue crosses international borders, because there is no universal international copyright law that protects an artwork all over the world.

The Museum of Modern Art—universally known as MoMA—has filed a lawsuit against MoMaCha, a Lower East Side art gallery and café with a curiously similar name to the museum’s famous moniker.

A recent decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals adds further complexity to the ever-evolving body of case law discussing the difficult concept of the “fair use” defense in copyright law. The case will likely be of interest to the art world because of the importance of fair use to many forms of art, from parody to appropriation art.

Earlier this month, retail chain H&M filed a lawsuit that seemed poised to address a central question about how copyright law applies to illegal graffiti.  But following a public-relations backlash, H&M has apparently abandoned the suit, leaving these legal waters uncharted for now.

This week, artist Lina Iris Victor filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging that her copyrights in three original artworks were infringed in the music video (link here) of a new song, “All the Stars,” which is featured on the soundtrack of the new Marvel movie Black Panther.

​This week, a federal judge awarded a total of $6.75m to the 21 graffiti-artist plaintiffs whose works were destroyed in the now-famous 5Pointz case.

Even when it comes to parodies, fair use litigation is rarely a cut-and-dried slam-dunk.

A new lawsuit by a tattoo artist against the makers of a popular video game series may explore some interesting questions about how U.S. copyright law applies to tattoos.

In a new lawsuit, the estate of American artist James Castle is suing publisher Scholastic and author/illustrator Allen Say over a forthcoming book about the artist, which the estate claims infringes on the copyrights of dozens of Castle works. 

If you rode the New York City subway’s Flushing-bound Number 7 Line before 2013, you probably recall the elevated train snaking through 5Pointz, a group of Long Island City warehouses emblazoned with colorful graffiti.  After years of protracted litigation, a trial is now underway in Brooklyn federal district court that will determine whether federal law affords the artists who created 5Pointz a legal right to the graffiti.    

As the holiday season approaches, a federal court in New York has issued an opinion regarding a parody of Dr. Seuss’s classic children’s book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas—and in the process, has reaffirmed how the fair-use doctrine in copyright law relates to parodies of copyrighted works.

Famed artist Richard Prince is no stranger to litigation; over the years, he’s been sued by multiple plaintiffs whose art he has incorporated into his own “appropriation art” works.  A few years ago, he was the defendant in the Cariou v. Prince case, which resulted in an important Second Circuit Opinion about the fair-use defense to copyright infringement.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

High-end fashion brand Louis Vuitton has lost its trademark suit against a tote-bag company My Other Bag, which markets canvas bags decorated with cartoonish reproductions of bags from high-end fashion lines (such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton), accompanied by the text “My Other Bag….”   This decision is notable, among other reasons, because it reaffirms the contours of the sometimes murky fair-use defense.

In the fast-moving and often-opaque art market, information is power—as seen in a recent lawsuit between rival auction houses over allegedly pilfered sales data. A complaint was filed last week in Texas federal district court by Heritage Auctions, a major U.S.-based auction house. The defendants are auction giant Christie’s and its subsidiary Collectrium (which Christie’s acquired in 2015).

Richard Prince has had a busy year on the litigation front. We’ve previously written about the copyright claims photographer Donald Graham filed last winter against Prince and the Gagosian Gallery over Prince’s use of Instagram images in his 2014-15 “New Portraits” exhibition. A motion to dismiss that case on fair use grounds is currently pending.

Over the summer, we wrote about a group of independent artists mounting a publicity campaign—and threatening legal action—against fast-fashion retailer Zara over the alleged unauthorized incorporation of the artists’ designs into some of Zara’s wares.  This autumn, a new federal lawsuit by artist Lili Chin levies similar accusations against a major department-store chain, Kohl’s, regarding its sale of garments adorned with drawings nearly identical to a series of copyrighted illustrations by Chin.

When international fast-food chain McDonald’s launched a campaign featuring images of graffiti art decorating some of its restaurants, the restaurant opened itself up to litigation asserting, among other things, copyright and trademark claims by artists who say their work has been copied without permission.  As graffiti art has become increasingly artistically and commercially valuable in recent years, courts and litigants have had to examine how copyright law applies to this unique art form.

Spanish pop artist Antonio De Felipe, sometimes referred to as the “Spanish Andy Warhol,” is under fire due to accusations by his former studio assistant that he is selling her works as his own.  Fumiko Negishi, an artist who worked as De Felipe’s studio assistant from 2006 to February of this year, has brought a lawsuit against him claiming that she painted 221 canvases signed by De Felipe.

As we’ve discussed on this blog before, infringement of copyrighted works posted online is rampant, rendering artists marketing through social media vulnerable to infringement of their intellectual property.  A recent case highlights this risk to photographers posting their works online.

Fast-fashion-brand Zara is facing a potential lawsuit—as well as an ongoing publicity battle—over accusations by a growing number of independent artists claiming Zara copied their designs. The firestorm began in mid-July when LA-based artist and designer Tuesday Bassen went public on Twitter with her belief that Zara had ripped off her designs for a series of pins and patches by reproducing them on Zara’s own line of iron-on patches.

While this blog often writes about the “fair use” defense in federal copyright law, we also frequently take note of cases that grapple with larger questions about copyrightability—that is, whether a work is covered by copyright protection at all.  In that vein, the Supreme Court announced earlier this month that it will review a Sixth Circuit decision regarding a thorny issue of copyrightability, in a case that may have implications across the art, fashion, and design industries.

Appropriation art is back in the news, as two of the biggest names in the field navigate the latest legal claims filed against them.
A few months ago, we wrote about a new lawsuit filed against Jeff Koons over his appropriation of a photograph from a 1980s liquor advertisement.  The defendants in the case (Koons and auction house Phillips) filed answers to the complaint, but in mid-April, the parties informed the court that they had reached a settlement, and the case is now closed.  But shortly after the Koons complaint was filed, another giant of appropriation art, Richard Prince, was haled into court for his latest dance on the line between fair use and copyright infringement. 

The art-law community pays close attention to legal developments in the copyright arena, including cases involving the fair use defense to copyright infringement. This blog has been watching the Google Books litigation unfold for years; the case deals with whether Google’s ambitious project—in which the search engine company has undertaken a massive initiative to scan, digitize, index, and make publicly available short “snippets” of millions of books, many of which are still under copyright—constitutes infringement of the copyrights in those works. 

This blog has previously covered the ongoing litigation concerning California’s Resale Royalties Act (CRRA).  A federal district court recently struck down the state statute on the grounds that it is preempted by federal copyright law, dealing a heavy blow to artists seeking royalties in connection with the resales of their artworks.

Move over, graffiti art—the next frontier in federal copyright litigation may be tattoo art.  A lawsuit filed in federal court last month seeks to enforce the intellectual property rights of a group of tattoo artists who created tattoos on several pro basketball stars; the complaint alleges that those rights were infringed when defendants, creators of the video game “NBA 2K16,” incorporated images of the players—including their tattoos—into the game.  See Solid Oak Sketches, LLC v. Visual Concepts LLC et al., S.D.N.Y. Docket No. 16-cv-724.

Famed “appropriation artist” Jeff Koons was sued in federal court last month over his alleged copyright infringement of a photograph used in a 1986 liquor advertisement. Koons is no stranger to litigation, having been sued on several different occasions for his appropriation art.  The results of those suits have been mixed.  For example, one of his works, “String of Puppies,” in which he created a sculpture based on a photograph without permission from the photographer, became the subject of an important court decision when the Second Circuit rejected Koons’s argument that his copying of the photograph was protected by the fair-use doctrine.

The Second Circuit has issued another important decision in the arena of copyright and fair use.  The ruling clarifies that, where the creator of a parody makes fair use of another work and adds sufficient originality of her own, she may claim copyright protection over the original components of the parody.

Federal courts continue to grapple with the complex question of when a defendant may successfully invoke the fair-use doctrine as a defense against copyright-infringement claims.  Fair use is a hot topic in copyright law these days, and it has prompted some high-profile litigation and some important recent decisions in the appellate courts.

Nearly two years ago, we wrote on this blog about the Southern District of New York’s decision ruling that the Google Books Library Project was protected by the fair use doctrine.  Earlier this month, the Second Circuit affirmed that decision, in what may well turn out to be the final word on the legality of Google’s ambitious project. In practical terms, this decision means that for now, after more than a decade of litigation, Google Books is legally in the clear.

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals waded into comic-book history and took an in-depth look at what makes a protectable “character” for purposes of copyright law. The court sided with DC Comics, the owner of the copyright in comic-book crime-fighter Batman, in a case focusing on the caped crusader’s signature vehicle, the Batmobile.

As the interest in graffiti art has grown, so too have discussions in artistic and legal circles—including in the courts.  Graffiti was back in the news this summer, highlighted by an interesting trio of court cases involving various issues impacting this unique body of art.

This blog has covered many examples of the challenges faced by artists in the internet age, from the potential implications for Etsy when its vendors sell counterfeit or infringing products, to the risk that work by independent artists can be swiped and mass-produced for major retailers, to the debate over artist Richard Prince’s appropriation of Instagram snaps.  A recent lawsuit by photographer Christopher Boffoli seeks to hold Internet phenomenon Pinterest accountable when it fails to remove copyrighted material from its platform.

Famed “appropriation artist” Richard Prince has spent much of his career testing the boundaries of fair use.  He was the defendant in the high-profile case of Cariou v. Prince, which revolved around a 2008 exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery called “Canal Zone,” in which Prince extensively appropriated works from Yes Rasta, a book of works by photographer Patrick Cariou.  Cariou’s ensuing copyright-infringement lawsuit culminated in a 2013 Second Circuit opinion, which held that the majority of Prince’s works constituted fair use of Cariou’s photographs under federal copyright law. 

Shareholders filed a class-action suit against online marketplace Etsy last week for allegedly failing to disclose in its initial public offering documents that millions of items for sale on the site were either counterfeit or potentially infringing trademarks and copyrights.  Etsy is a peer-to-peer e-commence website that allows artists to create their own stores and sell their creations for a small listing fee and a percentage of their sales revenue.  It provides an important platform for artisans without the following or the means to market and sell their works independently.

This blog has previously examined some of the complex legal issues surrounding graffiti art.  From the public fascination with street artist Banksy to the recent litigation over the destruction of a graffiti art repository at the 5Pointz site in Queens, this genre of art poses unique questions and problems for those who create it, those who own the property where it was created, and those who wish to use images of such works.

Earlier this week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed the scope of the “fair use doctrine” as a defense to copyright-infringement claims.  In doing so, the court had some harsh words for the Second Circuit’s much-anticipated decision last year in Cariou v. Prince.  The court’s ruling is the latest to analyze the significance of “transformative use” in determining the fair-use defense, and it sets up an interesting divergence among the Circuits on this important topic.