Marc Jancou Fine Art has sued Sotheby’s and Cady Noland for breach of contract and tortious interference with a contract. Jancou alleges that in or around November 2011, Noland tortiously interfered with the consignment agreement between Jancou and Sotheby’s by persuading Sotheby’s to refuse to put her artwork up for auction. Jancou alleges that Sotheby’s acted in response to Noland by withdrawing the work from auction.

The lawsuit was filed with the NY Supreme Court. You can access the complaint here.

It’s back, like a double-edged dagger — an éperon — Nietzsche style.  Back by popular demand, and now going on its third year, Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts‘ legendary, ground-breaking, and no-holds-barred educational series for visual artists.

“Informative, thought-provoking, enlightening, sensical. These things should be taught in art school, but I’m glad I learned them here!” notes one artist. “Pure deliciousness. Challenging, spicy, enlightening,” notes another. Read (and see) what other past participants have said here.

Although fees are now attached, artists can register for individual classes or the entire series. Course starts March 20, 2012

Law School for Visual Artists

Topics that will be covered during the 5-week course:

Tuesday March 20, 2012
Introduction:
• Legal Hypothetical: Analyzing legal issues in your art projects

Tuesday March 27, 2012
• Basic business models (non-profit and for-profit corporations, LLC’s)
• Fiscal Sponsorships
• Employment issues
A. Studio and gallery assistants
B. Working as a preparator for art galleries

Tuesday April 3, 2012
• Free Speech
• Right of Privacy

Tuesday April 10, 2012
Contracts
• Consignment Agreements
• Licensing Agreements
• Commissioning Agreements

Tuesday April 17, 2012
• Intellectual Property (copyright and trademarks)

Click here to register for this course (or just one or two classes).

Kevin Smith, Duke University’s Scholarly Communications Officer, has some thoughts on this question, comparing U.S. copyright laws to those of the UK and Brazil.

Machu Pichu. Photo courtesy of egroj, via everystockphoto.

All’s well that ends well.

The dispute was resolved through two separate agreements. The first, between Yale and the Peruvian government, established that the university would return all of the objects by the end of 2012. The second established a partnership between Yale and the San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco to share stewardship of the collection. The schools will also collaborate on academic research.

Via NPR. Some background here and here.

Colombian court finally ruled against Miguel Reyes Palencia who claimed Gabriel García Márquez had unlawfully misappropriated Palencia’s life-story as the basis for Márquez’s book, Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Via The Guardian. Mark Litwak has some good info on life rights, based on U.S. law.

Photographer, laffy4k. Via everystockphoto.

According to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the answer is “yes.” Although the case, Vergara Hermosilla v. The Coca-Cola Co., concerns written material and not visual art, it’s still pertinent to visual artists producing work for others and working in any media.

The Coca-Cola case concerns the commissioning of lyrics, where the lyricist alleged that he had maintained his copyright. Coca-Cola disagreed. We’re giving a recap here, but basically the trial court determined that an email exchange between the parties was a fully formed assignment of the copyright from Vergara to Coca-Cola.

[B]ecause the record establishes without dispute that Vergara assigned his copyright interest to Universal…. Vergara stated in his email on March 4, 2009, that his “only demand” to assign his copyright interest was that he receive credit as the adapter and producer. Puig [A representative for Coca-Cola] “unconditionally accepted” that condition in his email on March 5, 2009, in which he told Vergara to “count on the credits on the track.” Puig’s acceptance on behalf of Universal was effective to create a contract with Vergara because it “match[ed] the terms of [his] offer.”  The two emails were “so connected with each other that they may be fairly said to constitute a complete contract.”

Pamela Chestek gives a great recap of this case over at Property, intangible.

Yesterday, US Federal regulators approved Christo’s $50 million installation of anchored fabric over the Arkansas River in southern Colorado. The installation, Over the River, will include eight suspended panel segments totaling 5.9 miles along a 42-mile stretch of the river, about three hours southwest of Denver. Construction could begin next year with a possible two-week display of the work as early as August 2014.

Via the paper of record.

A New York art collector says a Paris dealer refuses to deliver a complete set of Warhol “Electric Chairs” prints for which she paid $400,000, and a $25,000 deposit for the canceled sale of a print by Pablo Picasso. Laura Anderson Barbata sued Marc Latamie in Manhattan Federal Court.

Via Courthouse News Service.

A British gallery hired a shipping company, Momart, to deliver four crates of art sold at the Hong Kong art fair to local collectors. In turn, Momart subcontracted the job to a company in Hong Kong, but did not outline the details in writing. The subcontractor picked up only three crates; the fourth crate has gone missing and has not been recovered.

What do we do? The Art Newspaper has more.

Here’s an update on the lawsuit between DC Comics and Marc Toberoff, the attorney representing the heirs of Superman co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. It’s a bit of a long entry, but quite interesting, especially if you’re a lawyer. The base of DC Comics’ claim is that “Toberoff induced the Shuster heirs to repudiate their 1992 agreement with DC Comics and enter into a 50/50 joint venture with defendant Pacific Pictures Corporation, a company wholly owned and controlled by Toberoff[.]“