Copyright Law

18 years, 18 years

Posted on March 17, 2008
Derek Fincham notes that today is the 18th anniversary of the Gardner Museum heist. (Geoff Edgers mentioned it last week as well.)

More on the Rauschenberg Suit

Posted on March 13, 2008
The Legal Satyricon has some thoughts (including a link to the complaint) on Robert Rauschenberg's suit (mentioned earlier here) over work someone pulled out of his trash.

Remington Update

Posted on March 13, 2008
The company "accused of usurping the name of the Frederic Remington Art Museum's Foundation" has failed to respond to the museum's District Court complaint (mentioned here), and next faces a default motion. Story here.

Strindberg Recovered

Posted on March 12, 2008
A painting by playwright August Strindberg, stolen two years ago from the Strindberg Museum, has been recovered by Swedish police during a drug raid in a Stockholm suburb.

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"It is time to extinguish the ignus fatuus held out by Blanch [v. Koons]. Common-law punitive damages cannot be recovered under the Copyright Act"

Posted on March 11, 2008
Viacom Int?l Inc. v. YouTube, Inc., SDNY (Mar. 7, 2008).

"If you are scratching your head and wondering what went wrong, you are not alone"

Posted on March 11, 2008
At the Stock Asylum, Nancy Wolff writes about a strange copyright decision in federal district court in Illinois.

Mistakes were made

Posted on March 10, 2008
Newsday reports on an interesting lawsuit by a collector of African-American art who claims he was "duped into selling a cache of previously unknown Diane Arbus photographs" for a total of $3,500. The buyer's lawyer calls the suit "frivolous," but if the plaintiff can show that the buyer did in fact know the works were by Arbus, he would seem to have a pretty good claim of "unilateral mistake...

Campus Controversies

Posted on March 10, 2008
At Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik looks at "several recent incidents involving controversial art in the higher education setting," with particular attention given to Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal, whose video work Virtual Jihadi "was shut down Thursday by officials of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ...

"I'll move on. I have many other murals"

Posted on March 10, 2008
The San Mateo County Times reports on the settlement, "in the low four figures," of a threatened VARA claim by a local artist whose mural will now be painted over "to make room for a burger restaurant's logo and signs."

Interest-ing

Posted on March 10, 2008
Lee Rosenbaum seems mildly surprised that the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum has announced that it will not be appealing Judge Lyle's decision last week which left, at least for the time being, the Stieglitz Collection with Fisk University, but, as the chairman of the museum told Diverse magazine: "You don?t appeal when you have won...

Over

Posted on March 08, 2008
I've mentioned on several occasions over the last few weeks that things were starting to go Randolph College's way in the lawsuit seeking to block it from selling four paintings. First, the court agreed to narrow the scope of the case to just the four paintings at issue, which seemed to be free and clear of any O'Keeffe-like restrictions on sale...

"Butt artist" settlement

Posted on March 07, 2008
From the AP: "A Virginia man fired from his job as a high school art teacher after a video of his work as a so-called 'butt-printing artist' surfaced on the Internet has reached a $65,000 settlement with his former employer. The agreement comes more than a year after Stephen Murmer was fired by the Chesterfield County School Board from his job at Monacan High School for his private artwork, much of which includes smearing his posterior and genitals with paint and pressing them against canvas...

Fisk "Wins"

Posted on March 06, 2008
Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle has ruled that Fisk University does not have to forfeit the Stieglitz Collection -- at least for the moment. She's given the school until Oct. 6 "to renovate its Carl Van Vechten Gallery and return the collection to public display, or Fisk could risk losing the entire collection...

Coulda shoulda woulda

Posted on March 06, 2008
The Friends of the Barnes filed their response to the Barnes's preliminary objections last week, and I've had a chance to take a quick look at the papers. The basic argument seems to be that "two significant developments have occurred" since the court's 2004 ruling approving the move -- those developments being the $50 million sale-leaseback offer from Montgomery County and the zoning change that would allow more visitors to come...

"To have to go through this process at this stage of their career is too bad"

Posted on March 05, 2008
The Los Angeles Times reports that the Los Angeles Music Center is suing Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen for more than $6 million in Los Angeles County Superior Court. According to the Times, the Music Center entered into a contract with the artists in May 2003 to deliver a sculpture entitled "Collar and Bow...

Point of agreement

Posted on March 05, 2008
Allen Strouse at ARTINFO.com: "Senators Clinton and Obama both support Senator Patrick Leahy?s (D-Vt.) 'Artist-Museum Partnership Act,' which would allow artists to make tax deductions of the fair market value of works they donate to charity?though the bill has died for the seventh time in committee...

Disclaimers

Posted on March 05, 2008
Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento on "the connection between law and visual culture" in the work of artist Carey Young.

"We are sad to lose this iconic work"

Posted on March 05, 2008
Antiques and the Arts Online and the Maine Antique Digest have more on folk art collector and American Folk Art Museum trustee emeritus Ralph Esmerian's loan troubles, which apparently include, among other things, the loss by the museum of Edward Hicks's famous painting The Peaceable Kingdom.

Scrap

Posted on March 04, 2008
Bloomberg reports on the theft in Chicago of a $70,000 stainless steel sculpture, probably for its $300 scrap value. Would not be the first time.

Back on View

Posted on March 04, 2008
From The New York Times: "Stolen and damaged in an armed daylight robbery in 2004, the restored Edward Munch masterworks 'The Scream' and 'Madonna' will be returned to public view at the Munch Museum in Oslo in May .... Security at the museum has been tightened since the crime...

"It may be that some donors submit inflated appraisals because they know they probably won't get caught"

Posted on March 04, 2008
The Los Angeles Times examines the "unchecked problem with inflated art appraisals that has cost the federal government untold millions." The Senate Finance Committee is said to be "considering legislation that would require additional scrutiny of appraisals...

"A spectacular own-goal"

Posted on March 03, 2008
Randy Kennedy had a story in yesterday's New York Times on a series of work my client Christoph Büchel has been making regarding the lawsuit Mass MoCA brought against him last spring, and the museum's continuing efforts to keep from public view documents relating to the dispute...

Sotheby's Suit

Posted on February 29, 2008
Josh Baer reports:"Frank Boye has sued Sotheby?s alleging 'breach of contract and breach of fiducuary duty regarding two paintings by Paul Fisher and wrongly delivered by the defendant to the wrong person on 2006 after receipt of due notice of ownership...

Lost and Found

Posted on February 29, 2008
The Boston Globe reports on the discovery of three paintings (including a Hassam and a Courbet) that were stolen back in 1976. Now the question is, Who owns them -- the heir of the original owner, the insurance company that paid the claim three decades ago ($45,000, though they're worth millions today), or the guy who found them? The US attorney's office in Providence has asked the District Court to decide...

"Since, at present, there is no legal definition of 'forced sales,' courts are in the process of defining them"

Posted on February 28, 2008
Arabella Yip and Ron Spencer discuss the latest twist in Nazi-looted art litigation.

Didn't get the job

Posted on February 28, 2008
The bankruptcy court has denied Larry Salander's request for a job with his bankrupt gallery. Bloomberg's Philip Boroff reports that the judge was none too happy with the motion: "'You should be aware there are repercussions for such conduct,' Judge Cecelia Morris told Salander lawyer Richard Bernard in court yesterday in Poughkeepsie, New York...

"It appears Rauschenberg threw this stuff away. It is not like he's creating phony Rauschenbergs and putting his name on it"

Posted on February 28, 2008
Interesting story from the USA Today: Robert Rauschenberg is suing a Florida man for selling work he apparently fished out of Rauschenberg's trash in 1998. A local gallery is also named as a defendant.The defendant's lawyer is quoted as saying: "Rauschenberg is an incredible artist...

Another reminder that anti-deaccessionism has its costs

Posted on February 28, 2008
"Amid a deepening financial crisis, Fisk administrators recently announced that they were ending all of the university's NCAA athletic programs after this year."

Sticky

Posted on February 27, 2008
Jason Kottke points to an initiative to get people to donate their intellectual property "into the public domain" when they die. It's an interesting idea, but I think there are real testamentary effectiveness problems here. Normally we can't dispose of property via a sticker on the back of a driver's license.

Act Now

Posted on February 27, 2008
Lee Rosenbaum mentions today that "auction sellers who were issued coupons, now redeemable for cash, in connection with Sotheby's and Christie's 2001 antitrust settlement, had better stop procrastinating. Some $45.4 million in coupons ($22.7 million at each auction house) are still outstanding, and they will become worthless pieces of paper on May 15...

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