The Supreme Court to Decide Whether Andy Warhol’s Artwork is Transformative or Copyright Infringement

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Andy Warhol Foundation to overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s decision finding that Warhol’s paintings of the musician Prince created in 1984 were not “fair use” of Lynn Goldsmith’s photograph taken in 1981. More specifically, last year the 2nd Circuit held that a “transformative” work must have a “fundamentally different and new artistic purpose and character.” However, Warhol’s paintings were found to be “much closer to presenting the same work in a different form.” Accordingly, the Foundation is now asserting that the Second Circuit‘s ruling “chill[s] artistic expression and undermine[s] First Amendment values” and “casts a cloud of legal uncertainty over an entire genre of visual art” in the hopes that the Supreme Court will recognize that Warhol’s works are fully protected under the law. This impending decision will not only assess what it means to be a transformative work; it will also examine the scope of the fair use defense to copyright infringement.