Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments Pertaining to Prince and Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol, renowned artist who passed in 1987, created a piece of art depicting Prince, one of the most famous musicians of all time.  In creating that artwork, Warhol relied on an image taken in 1981 by photographer Lynn Goldsmith.  After suing Warhol’s foundation for copyright infringement, Goldsmith was faced with arguments that the artwork was “transformative.”  The Second Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, however, stating that a work is not transformative if it is “both recognizably deriving from, and retaining the essential elements of, its source material.”  Absent that standard, the Second Circuit noted that movie adaptations of books could insert slight modifications to skirt copyright law.  On Wednesday (October 12), the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments surrounding whether an artwork is deemed “transformative” if it conveys a different message or meaning than the original work from which it is based off of.