The photographer whose picture of Prince was used by Andy Warhol, claims copyright. The case is brought before the US Supreme Court, which must try to decide this thorny question.
U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday played humorous art critics in an attempt to untangle a complex copyright case related to Andy Warhol’s portraits of Prince.
Steven Spielberg, Piet Mondrian, Stephen King or Darth Vader… far from their arid law manuals, the nine wise men drew on their general knowledge to measure the potential repercussions of their decision for the art world.
At the heart of the conflict: sixteen screen-printed portraits made in 1984 by the “Pope of Pop Art” from a photo of the legendary musician taken three years earlier by Lynn Goldsmith, renowned for having immortalized many rock stars.
The photographer, who was in the public on Wednesday, asked for copyright from the Andy Warhol Foundation, which refused them. After contradictory decisions of the courts, the Supreme Court must decide between them.
Intellectual property and pop culture
In passing, it must clarify the right of intellectual property in terms of so-called “transformative” works, that is to say which borrow from a first work to lead to an original creation.
Despite the seriousness of the stakes, the hearing aroused many bursts of laughter, especially when the very conservative judge Clarence Thomas confided to being “a fan of Prince”. Court chief John Roberts baffled a lawyer with his mastery of abstract art, while magistrate Amy Coney Barrett looked ready to debate the meaning of the Lord of the Rings.
“Purple Fame”
The file at the heart of their exchanges finds its source in 1981. Lynn Goldsmith proposes to the weekly Newsweek to draw the portrait of a musician who begins to break through. She takes several black and white shots of the young man with fine features.
In 1984, the album Purple Rain propels Prince to stardom. The magazine Vanity Fair wants to devote an article to him and asks Andy Warhol to paint his portrait in the style of his famous colored engravings of Marilyn Monroe or Mao.
For 400 dollars, Lynn Goldsmith authorizes the magazine to use one of her photos for the exclusive use of this article. Entitled Purple Famethe text is accompanied by Prince’s face, purple skin and jet-black hair, on a bright orange background.
The story would have ended there if Andy Warhol had not declined this photo in all tones to create a series of 16 portraits of the musician, whom he admired for his talent and his androgynous style.
Lynn Goldsmith discovered their existence in 2016 when Prince died, when Vanity Fair published on the front page an image of the “Kid of Minneapolis” taken from his photo but all orange this time. She then contacted the Andy Warhol Foundation, which has managed the artist’s collection since his death in 1987, to claim rights, opening the door to an intense legal battle.
Artistic debates
In 2019, a trial judge ruled in favor of the foundation, finding that Andy Warhol had transformed the message of the work. For him, Lynn Goldsmith focused on showing Prince as a “vulnerable, uncomfortable” person, while Andy Warhol’s portraits underline his status as an “icon, larger than life”.
An appeals court, however, invalidated his reasoning, finding that the judges could not play “art critics and analyze the intentions and messages of the works”.
This debate replayed on Wednesday at the Supreme Court, where John Roberts, in particular, insisted that the portrait of Andy Warhol was not intended “to show what Prince looks like but to give perspective on his celebrity status. “. Lynn Goldsmith’s lawyer, Lisa Blatt, tried to show “the madness” of this criterion: “I assure you that a retouched photo of me does not carry the same message at all as an authentic one”.
“It’s wrong,” retorted the magistrate, provoking laughter from the audience. “It will be two photos of the same woman, who maybe just look a little better in one…” The judges, however, seemed to want to go beyond the question of “meaning” by also asking themselves that of ” the use” of the two works.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor noted that the “Orange Prince” was intended to illustrate an article, as a photo of Lynn Goldsmith would have done, and therefore had a “commercial use”. “If it had been used in a museum it might be different,” added his colleague Brett Kavanaugh. Their response is expected by June 30.