How much do you need to change a piece of art to avoid a copyright lawsuit? Artist Richard Prince printed Instagram photos on canvas and priced them at $10,000. This sounds exactly like direct plagiarism, but is it?
The works displayed a screenshot of an Instagram post. Looking closer, Prince included his own comments below the photo. This addition of adding his own comments seems to tilt the scale towards original work, or commentary (literally) on the original work.
Prince is known for using other’s photographs in his work, and was sued several times on his co-opted pieces. Art in America reported on a recent overturned ruling where Prince before used of photos of Rastafarian men from French photographer Patrick Cariou’s book Yes, Rasta. In Prince’s work titled Canal Zone (2008), Prince painted circles over the eyes, noses and mouths on the photo subjects. In one photo, he added a guitar over a man’s hands.
This decision…clarifies…the law does not require that a new work of art comment on any of its source material to qualify as fair use.. Attorney Virginia Rutledge (Art in America)
I’m conflicted. I want to comment on the art I see and would love to co-opt other artworks and change them or add to them. I loved seeing Frank Kozik’s original works where he seemed to co-opt the idea of Mickey Mouse by adding mouse ears on subjects. (See Kozik’s interesting studio here)
The Stanford law journal drops some interesting opinions on the original intent to copyright law. The article is directly focused on the written form, but is relevant to the practice of creating fine art. I’m loving the goal of using copyright law to induce freedom and expand knowledge. Keeping the idea of Prince’s use of other photos in his own artwork, read the following quote:
“[T]he Framers intended copyright . . . to be the engine of free expression.” It “is intended to increase and not to impede the harvest of knowledge”; “[t]o promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts”; to encourage “Learned [writers] to compose and write useful Books.”
Yow! That is some hotness. Just reading that makes me want to create art!
[Copyright law was]…intended to increase and not to impede the harvest of knowledge.
What do you think about re-using other artworks? How many modifications does someone need to use in order to call a work their own, or to avoid copyright?