MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC

Did the Richard Prince Fair Use Case Just Swallow Copyright Law? Add Some Blue to the Other Guy’s Photo, Call it Fair Use – Really?

Posted May 14, 2013 by Andrew Mirsky 0

Fair use update: I wrote last year about the fair use case in New York involving photographer Richard Prince, where a federal district court rejected Prince’s claim of fair use of photographer Patrick Cariou’s photos of Rastafarians.

Prince appealed his defeat and late last month won a reversal from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York.  The case may not be all that useful guidance for would-be artists on the limits of fair use – more on this below – but more of a legal scrum over what is (or is not) a “transformative” use of a previously copyrighted artwork.  Or more particularly, how much a court should get involved in evaluating whether a later user’s re-use of an earlier artist’s work is “transformative” at all.

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Fair Use or Just Plain Stealing? “Transformative” Art in a Digital World

Posted February 21, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

A recent New York Times article discussed the case of an artist was sued for copyright infringement after he created paintings and collages based on photographs without crediting or obtaining permission from the photographer.

The artist, Richard Prince, based his works on photographs from a book about Rastafarians “to create the collages and a series of paintings based on [those photographs],” reported Randy Kennedy in the Times.

Then ensued a discussion of the degree to which material must be transformed to fall under copyright law’s “fair use” protection, which would allow use of copyrighted material if, as the article explains, “the new thing ‘adds value to the original’ so that society as a whole is culturally enriched by it.”  (The reference is to a 1990 Harvard Law Review article by Federal Judge Pierre Leval.  I previously discussed fair use’s 4-prong analysis in the context of photographs and artwork, here and in mashups here.)

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Podcast #10: BitTorrent Copyright Infringement: Trouble for DMCA?

Posted June 20, 2011 by Andrew Mirsky 0

 

Today, I discuss BitTorrents, and a particular case in California challenging the copyright validity of what one service provider is doing.  BitTorrent has been in the (copyright) news lately – and not surprisingly – after the movie studios set their sites on bringing down yet the latest iteration of file-sharing technology.

Some of the issues I discuss are these:

  • What is the BitTorrent file sharing technology? And how is it different from Napster and its peer-to-peer progeny?
  • What are the 2 biggest distinctions between BitTorrent and peer-to-peer and, in particular, BitTorrent’s distributive approach to file-sharing?
  • Why is bitTorrent in the (copyright) news? I will particularly discuss a case in federal court in California, involving Columbia Pictures and other film studios who sued a bitTorrent company called isoHunt, together with its founder, Gary Fung.
  • What were the relevant legal issues in this case? Several important copyright arguments were made, but of most significance were 2 particular issues: inducement of copyright infringement, and the safe harbor for providers of “information location tools” under Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the DMCA).
  • Why did Google get involved? I discuss how this case was an unusual instance where a court ruled that DMCA safe harbor protection was not available to a provider of “information location tools” who knew or should have known about potential or actual copyright infringement happening on its service.

Please click below for the podcast.

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Podcast #8: “Street Art”: Fair Use of Prior Copyrights?

Posted April 14, 2011 by Andrew Mirsky 0

In today’s podcast, we discuss “street art”, which evidently isn’t just your grandfather’s graffiti anymore!  Street art has lately been in the news particularly because of several prominent copyright infringement cases, and most notably fallout from Shepard Fairey’s 2008 Obama “Hope” posters.  An even more recent controversy came out of the Oscar-nominated documentary film by Banksy, “Exit Through the Gift Shop”.

Along the way, we will touch on Run DMC, Thierry Guetta (aka “Mr. Brainwash”), “pop-art”, photography, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg.

Joining me to discuss copyright, fair use, street art, what is street art and all that we can cover in 15 minutes … I’m joined by Brooke Jimenez.  Brooke is a second-year law student at Georgetown University Law Center with a focus on international law, and a creative mind on issues of media law.

Stories mentioned in the podcast include this from The Art Newspaper, and this from George Will in the Washington Post.  Please click the audio player link below for the podcast. Enjoy.

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Copying of Entire Article a Fair Use? Maybe. Sort of. Not Normally.

Posted March 24, 2011 by Andrew Mirsky 0

The Las Vegas copyright fair use loss for Righthaven last week was probably less meaningful – and less amusing – than the “money quote” (as Wall Street Journal blogger Ashby Jones put it) from the federal Judge James Mahan, who reportedly mused, “I realize this is going to be appealed.  I tell litigators ‘that’s why God created San Francisco’” – site of the 9th Circuit federal appeals court.

At first glance, the case is a breathtaking blow for newspapers and media organizations (including, presumably, bloggers), because it upheld a fair use defense against copyright infringement where the newspaper story was copied in its entirety.

This case would seem to run afoul of every fair use guideline ever published, including the fair use law itself, and particularly the frequent characterization of a “fair” use as a “transformative” use:

… whether the new work “merely supersede[s] the objects” of the original creation, or instead adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message; it asks, in other words, whether and to what extent the new work is “transformative.” Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 575, 114 S.Ct. 1164, 127 L.Ed.2d 500 (1994).

But that’s first glance.  Judge Mahan hasn’t yet issued his Order, so we know only wha the Las Vegas Sun reported from the hearing.  

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