Category Archives: Copyright

Deal or no Deal(ing): Report on copyright seminar with Howard Kennedy

Posted on: October 28, 2024 by Federica Monteleone

What happens when an artist incorporates third-party material into their work? What precautions should artists, dealers, galleries or museums take when creating, managing or selling such works? The seminar, Deal or No Dealing: Copyright and Fair Dealing/Fair Use in the Visual Arts, jointly hosted by the Institute of Art and Law and Howard Kennedy LLP […]

Double Glazed: Taking Artists’ Rights Seriously and… Algorithmically

Posted on: March 4, 2024 by Chen Zhu

The Cybernetic Milkmaid What would Vermeer (1632-1675) feel if he lived until today when he suddenly discovered that his artistic style could be reproduced by state-of-the-art generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools? How would Han van Meegeren (1889-1947), a skilful art forger who infamously fooled Nazis with his faked Old Masters’ paintings (including Vermeer’s), react to […]

A Step Toward Fencing in Aberrant Artistic Appropriation

Posted on: February 19, 2024 by Molly Stech

On 25 January, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered judgements against appropriation artist Richard Prince and his co‑defendants Laurence Gagosian, the Gagosian Gallery and Blum & Poe Gallery. The cases are Graham v. Prince et al (15 cv 10160) and McNatt v. Prince et al (16 cv 08896). […]

Steamboat Willie’s Mickey Mouse Has Entered the Public Domain: The End of a Copyrighted Era

Posted on: February 5, 2024 by Chiara Gallo

When the clock struck midnight on the first day of 2024, one of the most anticipated Public Domain Days was finally reached and the first iteration of Mickey Mouse was released into the public domain in the US. This meant that, after 95 years and several changes in the US copyright regime, the first ever […]

Important UK Copyright Case on ‘Originality’ Standard

Posted on: January 23, 2024 by Emily Gould

A recent decision by the Court of Appeal in London, handed down in November 2023, has triggered a stream of comment and debate among scholars and art historians. The case of THJ v Sheridan does not, at first glance, appear to have much at all to do with the arts sector, involving, as it did, […]

Munich Regional Court Makes Decision on Joint Authorship of “Paris Bar” Works

Posted on: November 13, 2023 by Adrienne Bauer

The Paris Bar in Berlin’s Kantstraße is a traditional meeting place for the arts and culture scene of the German capital and a true institution. Three paintings depicting this very bar have now become the subject of an interesting copyright decision by the Munich Regional Court. Specifically, it concerns the works “Paris Bar (Version 1-3)” […]

US Copyright Requirement for ‘Human Authorship’ Enforced in AI Test Case – But that “Bedrock” May Be Changing

Posted on: September 22, 2023 by Stephanie Drawdy

Neither the US Constitution nor the US Copyright Act mandates ‘human authorship’ for copyright. Yet, the US Copyright Office (USCO) has come out strong in its requirement of the human element, denying registration to computer-generated work on that basis and even winning summary judgment in a federal case related to one such denial. Why then […]

Pending AI Suits in the US: Frivolous or Crucial?

Posted on: June 9, 2023 by Stephanie Drawdy

The US Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law held a hearing in May 2023 on “Oversight of AI: Rules for Artificial Intelligence”. During that hearing, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified about the myriad of issues raised by generative AI. Certainly content creators/owners “need to benefit from this technology”, Altman offered. But […]

Andy Warhol decision at US Supreme Court: a whimper, not a bang

Posted on: May 22, 2023 by Alexander Herman

Pity the Andy Warhol Foundation. Not only did the Foundation have to close its associated authentication board in 2012, but now it has lost what was probably the most high-profile artistic copyright lawsuit of a generation. Although Warhol’s artworks and his brand continue to enjoy high levels of popularity and financial success, the Foundation has […]

The Vitruvian Man highlights puzzling elements of Italian cultural heritage laws

Posted on: April 24, 2023 by Chiara Gallo

The ‘Art Collection’ series of jigsaw puzzles by Ravensburger is an ever popular pastime and features many of the world’s most renowned masterpieces, from the likes of Haring and Klimt to Botticelli and Leonardo Da Vinci. In fact, Ravensburger’s recent reproduction of Da Vinci’s Uomo Vitruviano as one of its jigsaws has sparked a legal […]