“Supreme Court Rules Photographer Lynn Goldsmith Deserves Copyright for Prince Photo Used by Andy Warhol”

Photographer Lynn Goldsmith has won her court battle, which is closely followed in the art world. The Andy Warhol Foundation was ordered to pay him royalties for the transformation of his snapshot of Prince by the master of Pop Art, in 1984.

A photographer, whose snapshot of the musician Prince was used by the painter Andy Warhol, should have received copyright, the United States Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a case closely followed by the art world.

The Court considers that Lynn Goldsmith should have been remunerated because the portrait inspired by her work had the same “commercial use” as her photos: it was used on the cover of a magazine.

“Goldsmith’s original work, like that of other photographers, deserves copyright protection, even from well-known artists,” wrote Judge Sonia Sotomayor on behalf of the majority.

The foundation of the master of Pop Art expressed its “respectful disagreement” with this judgment, while welcoming in a press release that it is “limited to this precise use (of the painting) and does not question the legality of all the series on Prince, created by Andy Warhol in 1984”.

The affair began three years earlier, when Lynn Goldsmith, a photographer renowned for having immortalized many rock stars, proposed to the weekly Newsweek to draw the portrait of a promising musician: Prince.

She then takes several black and white shots of the young man with fine features. In 1984, the album “Purple Rain” propelled him to stardom. Vanity Fair magazine wants to devote an article to him and asks Andy Warhol to paint his portrait in the style of his famous colored engravings of Marilyn Monroe or Mao. For 400 dollars, Lynn Goldsmith authorizes the magazine to use one of her photos for the exclusive use of this article. Titled “Purple Fame,” the text is accompanied by Prince’s face, purple skin and jet-black hair, against a bright orange background.

“Aesthetic judgments”

The story would have ended there if Andy Warhol had not declined this photo in all tones to create a series of 16 screen-printed portraits of the musician, whom he admired for his talent and his androgynous style. Lynn Goldsmith discovered their existence in 2016 when Prince died, when Vanity Fair featured an image of the “Minneapolis Kid” taken from his photo on the front page, but all orange this time.

She then contacted the Andy Warhol Foundation, which has managed the artist’s collection since his death in 1987, to claim rights. The latter refused, opening the door to an intense legal battle which was resolved on Thursday.

“Goldsmith and the Warhol Foundation have made the same commercial use” of Prince’s image, wrote Judge Sotomayor, without entering into the debate on intellectual property law in relation to “transformative” works. This concept protects artists who borrow from a first work to achieve an original creation. In this file, the lawyers of the Warhol Foundation had argued that the painting underlined the status of Prince “icon”, while the photo rather showed his “vulnerability”.

Courts should “not take on the role of art critics and impute intentions or meaning to a work of art,” writes Sonia Sotomayor on behalf of the majority. “Judges are ill-equipped to make aesthetic judgments.”

“The history of art”

Two of the nine justices, Progressive Elena Kagan and Chief Justice John Roberts, disagreed in a separate argument. Stressing that Andy Warhol “earned his place in art history lessons”, they consider “surprising that the majority does not measure how much his work differs (…) from the original work”, and “worse, that she doesn’t seem to care.”

For Bruce Ewing, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law, the scope of the judgment is “both narrow and wide”. Narrow “because the majority takes care to specify that it is only deciding on the question of the use, fair or not, of the work in a specific context”, he analyzes in a document sent to the AFP. Sonia Sotomayor writes that the Court “expresses no opinion on the exhibition or sale” of Prince’s other paintings by the Warhol Foundation.

Wide “because it insists on the importance of commercial or non-commercial use, which will make it possible to reassess all the case law which focused on the transformative aspect of works”, adds the expert.