The music industry has welcomed a US Supreme Court ruling in a big old copyright dispute that had visual art at its heart, but was centred on a photo of a pop star and – more importantly – impacts on the always tricky concept of fair use. And in a way that could impact on the increasingly lively copyright debates around generative AI.
The dispute was between the Andy Warhol Foundation and the photographer Lynn Goldsmith over artworks produced by Warhol in the 1980s that used a photo of Prince as a reference. When Warhol first used Goldsmith’s photo of Prince in 1984 to create his distinctive artwork, it was part of a commission from the magazine Vanity Fair, and use of the photo was licensed by publisher Condé Nast, with Goldsmith getting a co-credit when Warhol’s artwork was published.