The Velvet Underground have filed legal papers against the Andy Warhol Foundation in Manhattan, claiming that the foundation has been illegally licensing their iconic banana and it’s their banana, their banana, damn it! Read more »
Ah, it’s the ol’ “Rihanna rips off so-and-so!” story again, as if she had actually consciously sifted through the photographic works of Sølve Sundsbø to pick images to bite… Read more »
That far-fetched copyright lawsuit against Ryan McGinley and his alleged biting of 150 of photos from photog Janine Gordon has been dismissed as expected, as per the judge’s decision (PDF) — “the dictates of good eyes and common sense lead inexorably to the conclusion that there is no substantial similarity between Plaintiff’s works and the allegedly infringing compositions of McGinley.” Oh, and it’s worth a read. Proceed to juicy bits. Read more »
Recently, BBC “credited” several photos of the Tottenham riots to “Twitter.” When reader Andy Mabbett complained, the BBC responded: “Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer… any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain.” Translation: Pffft. Also, bullshit, and so, BBC apologizes. Read more »
Wildlife photographer David Slater set up his tripod in an Indonesian national park and walked away, returning to find monkeys in the middle of a photo-session with his gear. You may have heard about it. TechDirt was one of the many of sites to report on this quirky item and started a debate on whether anyone can sell, license or assign copyright ownership of photograph allegedly shot by a monkey. Their position? Not legally, no. That’s when Caters Agency — currently licensing those photos — slapped TechDirt with an overzealous takedown notice. Read more »
Photographer Janine “Jah Jah” Gordon is suing Ryan McGinley and Levi’s for stealing her ideas and the “style, idea, composition, backgrounds, foregrounds, expressions, gestures” from her work. She claims he’s been ripping her since the ’90s and wants $30,000 for each of the 150 times he’s allegedly done so. Read more »
Appropriation artists beware! Andy Baio of Waxy.org created Kind of Bloop, a chip-tunes version of the legendary ‘Kind of Blue’ album by Miles Davis. Awesome… until he got sued for copyright infringement of the cover. Read more »
Kim Kardashian’s legal team is swooping down on an R&B duo who used Kim’s copyrighted breasts, claiming: “We didn’t even know they were her boobies because obviously I don’t recognize her by her nipples.” (NSFW) Read more »
Copyright infringement now earns you a mandatory date with Happy Tree Friends. If this light instructional sets the standard on what YouTube wants us to think about Fair Use, then it’s really, really complicated, kids, so just don’t remix if you don’t have an attorney… It’s bad, m’kay? Read more »
Famous appropriation art maker Richard Prince was sued for mildly transforming 41 Patrick Cariou photos from the Yes Rasta book and using them for his Canal Zone exhibit at the Gagosian gallery in 2008. He just lost his “fair use” argument. The judge decided Prince’s work was just too derivative of the original. Read more »
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