On September 10, minutes after the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, an Instagram post set the political world abuzz: Taylor Swift endorsed Harris in the race. The announcement from one of the world’s biggest stars was newsworthy in itself, but IP lawyers likely took note of why she chose to post. Swift explained that she felt compelled to share her views after a photo featuring an AI-generated image of her appearing to endorse Donald Trump was posted online. The image was shared by Trump himself on his social media platform Truth Social, and was circulated widely by his supporters. Swift wrote that the image “really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation.”
Battery Technology Trade Secret Theft Runs Out of Juice
A recent complaint alleging trade secret misappropriation in the Eastern District of New York demonstrates the importance of combing an alleged trade secret misappropriator’s social media for subtle – and not-so-subtle – evidence of their wrongdoing.
The United States has charged Klaus Pflugbeil and Yilong Shao with conspiring to convey
The “State of the Arts” after Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith
It has been eight months since the Supreme Court’s landmark copyright fair use decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Art, Inc. v. Goldsmith. Much has been written on the subject, including in this forum, but in many ways it was a narrow decision. The Court held that the commercial licensing of Orange Prince, a work in Andy Warhol’s Prince series based on a photograph by Lynn Goldsmith, was not protected under the first factor of the four-factor fair use test under 17 U.S.C. § 107. Its discussion of the transformative use test emphasized the similarity of the uses the works were put to (depicting Prince on magazine covers), rather than the characteristics of the works themselves. This, the Court said, prevents judges from acting as art critics to determine the aesthetic differences between, or meanings behind, artistic works.
Supreme Court Affirms Andy Warhol’s Prince Series Not Transformative Fair Use
On May 18th, the Supreme Court handed down its much‑anticipated opinion in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith. We’ve tracked the progress of this case through the trial court, Second Circuit, and Supreme Court.
The case concerns whether the Andy Warhol Foundation violated a copyright held by photographer Lynn Goldsmith when it licensed a Warhol work called Orange Prince, based on Goldsmith’s photo, to Condé Nast for use on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. Goldsmith’s photo of Prince was the basis of a series of silkscreen portraits and drawings by Warhol known as the Prince Series. The work at issue was created without Goldsmith’s knowledge or consent. She received none of the $10,000 licensing fee paid to the Warhol Foundation for use of the image.
Supreme Court to Re-Examine Fair Use: Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith
On March 28th, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, a case involving the core issues around copyright fair use. The case involves a series of Warhol drawings and silkscreen prints adapted from an original photograph of Prince taken by Lynn Goldsmith. Likely to interplay with the recent fair use decision in Google v. Oracle, the Supreme Court’s decision in this case has the potential to reshape the contours of fair use and the fate of the transformative use test. The outcome of the decision will have a widespread impact on how artists, particularly appropriation artists and creators of “fan art,” draw from other works.