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In a 7-2 vote on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Andy Warhol infringed on photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s copyright when he created a series of silk screen images based on a photograph Goldsmith shot of the late musician Prince in 1981.
The high-profile case, which pits an artist’s freedom to riff on existing works of art against the protection of an artist from copyright infringement, hinges on whether Warhol’s images of Prince transform Goldsmith’s photograph to a great enough degree to stave off claims of copyright infringement and therefore be considered as „fair use.“ Under copyright law, fair use permits the unlicensed appropriation of copyright-protected works in specific circumstances, for example, in some non-commercial or educational cases.
Goldsmith owns the copyright to her Prince photograph. She sued the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (AWF) for copyright infringement after the foundation licensed an image of Warhol’s titled Orange Prince (based on Goldsmith’s image of the pop artist) to Conde Nast in 2016 for use in its publication, Vanity Fair.
Goldsmith did license the use of her Prince photo to Vanity Fair back in 1984, when the magazine commissioned Warhol to create a silkscreen work based on Goldsmith’s photo and then used an image of Warhol’s piece to accompany an article they ran that year about the musician. But that was only for the one-time use of the image. According to the Supreme Court opinion, the magazine credited Goldsmith and paid her $400 at the time for its use of her „source photograph.“
Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the court.
