Art Law: The Year In Review

The past year was packed with litigation that ranged from broad constitutional questions to the ever present scourge of forgeries. Art Law Gallery presents highlights of some of the most important cases:

The Walking Dead Copyrights: Conductor Lawrence Golan's long-running "zombie" copyright case was argued before the Supreme Court in October. The case centers around the fate of millions of pieces of literature, music, and art that were previously in the public domain. A treaty that the US signed (TRIPs: Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and the resulting congressional legislation restored the copyright on the pieces of work in question. For Golan, a professor and conductor at the University of Denver, this meant that the resulting rental fees put a vast body of work beyond the scope of his and other small orchestras with limited budgets. The case has far-reaching implications for the art world as well and involves the copyright protection of pieces by Picasso, Escher, and many other artists. The case below is Golan v. Holder, 609 F.3d 1076 (10th Cir. 2010), granted cert. Mar. 2011, argued before S.Ct. Oct. 5, 2011. Rastappropriationist: Photographer Patrick Cariou sued high-profile artist Richard Prince, his gallery and the book publisher, for copyright infringement. The case is the most closely followed case in the area of appropriation art. It brings to the fore the booming culture of "remixing" old images to make new art. The advent of the Internet and digitization of media has made it easier and easier to practice this craft. This has pushed the genre up against the limits of copyright, which this case will likely define for the near future. In the case at hand, Cariou was successful at trial and won his claim that Prince had infringed on his copyright, ordering that all infringing copies be impounded and destroyed. The case is Cariou v. Prince et al, 784 F.Supp.2d 337 (S.D. NY, 2011), and is currently on appeal. Droit de Suite Life: A group of artists and artists' estates sued Sotheby's and Christie's for failure to pay resale royalties per the California Resale Royalties Act. The law generally allows an artist to collect a 5% royalty on any art that is sold for over $1000 if the sale takes place in California or the seller resides in California. The class action lawsuits were filed with the intention of compelling the auction houses to reveal if any sales fall under the specifications of the law. The cases are...