The case centered around a silkscreen image Warhol made off of a photographer’s shot in the 1980s that resurfaced after Prince’s death in 2016.
Topline
The Supreme Court ruled against the Andy Warhol Foundation in a copyright dispute on Thursday, determining in a 7-2 decision the late artist violated a photographer’s copyright on her photo of the singer Prince.Key Facts
Photographer Lynn Goldsmith alleged copyright infringement, after the Andy Warhol Foundation granted Vanity Fair a license to use one of the pop artist’s Prince silkscreens in 2016, decades after the images were first created using her photograph.
The court rejected arguments made by the Andy Warhol Foundation that the artist didn’t violate copyright laws because he sufficiently transformed Goldsmith’s original shot.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that Goldsmith’s “original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists.