On the proposed Los Angeles City ordinance. On a public hearing concerning the proposed ordinance. And on whether the proposed ordinance should refer to murals as fine art and not commercial signs, and whether murals should have moral rights protection under California law and the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act.

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).

Another strong sign that U.S. courts are increasingly leaning toward protecting artists and their creative assets. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court correctly affirmed the 10th Circuit’s decision upholding Congress’s right to extend copyright protection to millions of books, films, artworks, and musical compositions by foreign artists that once were free for public use.

In a 6-2 decision (Kegan recused), Justice Ginsburg opined that Congress was acting “comfortably” within its powers when it extended copyright protection to foreign artists under treaty obligations that gave U.S. artists the same rights. Justice Breyer and Justice Alito dissented.

Lyle Denniston, of the SCOTUS blog, opined, “[a]ny legal rights that exist belong only to the author or composer, the ruling said.  If anyone wants to resume the use or performance of a work after it regains copyright, they must pay for the privilege[.]”

This decision should give pause to those pushing for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Cariou v. Prince. The Ginsburg opinion was supported in full by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Sonia Sotomayor, and Clarence Thomas. Quit while you’re ahead, for it’s one thing to have a district court decision; it’s another to have a Supreme Court decision strongly (and correctly) restricting mindless appropriation across the land.

The case is Golan v. Holder.

Locke v. Shore is a challenge to a Florida law that requires interior designers to be licensed by the government before they may work in a commercial setting. The plaintiffs are three interior designers and the National Federation of Independent Business, some of whose members wish to engage in speech that Florida has broadly defined as the “practice of interior design.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit declared last March that the regulation of “professionals’…direct, personalized speech with clients” received no First Amendment scrutiny whatsoever.

Will the U.S. Supreme Court review this decision?

Via The National Law Journal.

There are claims of censorship in Istanbul as eight artists and an artist collective have made a joint decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Modern museum’s ongoing Reality and Dream exhibition, which chronicles the works of female artists from Turkey since the 1900s.

Via Hyperallergic.

Can’t we all just get along? The Elysee Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland alleges clothing company Lacoste tried to censor an artist for being too pro-Palestinian. In support of the artist, the gallery later released another statement suspending the contest and its relationship with Lacoste.

I guess they can always deaccession some work to make up for the 25,000 euro they lost.

Via the BBC.

The Atlantic, on how

Congress is considering passing major legislation to change the definitions of online infringement. While supposedly aimed at foreign “rogue sites” like the Pirate Bay in Sweden, the legislation’s new definitions would alter the copyright safe-harbor and make platforms for user-generated speech — including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube — liable for copyright infringement committed by users. These sites would have to adopt Big Brother technologies to monitor all their users’ activities in order to make sure no user is sharing the latest release from the Twilight series.

An avid Clancco reader just sent us this story, via Hyperallergic.

It seems that a NY-based performance artist was playing, excuse us, performing, with a life-sized sex doll, and streaming to curious viewers via Ustream, when all of a sudden Ustream shut down transmission for what it deemed a violation of Ustream’s terms of service.

Is this censorship? Well, maybe. It certainly isn’t a violation of our First Amendment (Ustram is not a government actor). The artist, Amber Hawk Swanson, is not being told she can’t do the performance; Ustream simply doesn’t have to transmit it. In a sense, she’s left to her own devices, or those of another streamer.

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.

A professor’s nude photographs that show him posing with students and faculty are causing controversy.

Artist Danny Guthrie is an associate professor at Michigan State University. According to The Detroit News, Guthrie “does not recruit currently enrolled students. Those who participate do so voluntarily, determine the extent of their involvement and approve the final photographs.”

Michigan State supports Guthrie. “Sometimes art, and the means by which it is expressed, evokes strong responses — both for and against it,” Heather Swain, interim vice president for university relations, said in a statement. “In situations where the art relates to an academic activity, MSU’s main concern is to maintain the integrity of the teaching and learning environment.”

What does Guthrie have to say about this controversy?

“I have reached a not entirely pleasant place in life one might call the fulcrum of middle age, with the balance shifting inexorably towards decrepitude,” Guthrie said in his statement on MSU’s website.”As one ages, it is with no small sense of remorse and regret that one comes to experience the realm of desire, romance, and carnality as existing more in the past than the future.”

One can’t help but think of Guthrie’s work as a beautiful illustration of Philip Roth’s, The Dying Animal. Some of Guthrie’s more “innocent” photos may be viewed here, while some with nudity may be viewed here and here.