The American Society of Media Photographers and Picture Archive Council of America have filed a joint amicus brief in support of Patrick Cariou. The brief was written by the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

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.

An elderly woman, Jan Cowles, sued the Gagosian Gallery and Larry Gagosian in NY County Court, claiming it allowed her son to sell a major work by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, without her permission, for far less than its true value. The woman claims that her son Charles Cowles, an art dealer in New York City, sold her Lichtenstein enamel, “Girl in Mirror,” out of financial desperation, while his mother suffered “moderate to severe dementia.”

Cowles wants her artwork back and $10 million in punitive damages for fraud, conversion, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment.

Via Courthouse News Service.

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[.]“

In three federal class actions, Chuck Close and other artists accuse New York-based Sotheby’s and Christie’s, and Internet auctioneer eBay, of “willful and systematic violation” of their obligation to pay royalties on artworks sold in California or at auction by California residents.

The artists claim the auction houses and eBay violated the California Resale Royalties Act of 1977, which entitles visual artists or their estates to 5 percent of the proceeds from resale of their artwork in California or out of state by a California resident.

Via Courthouse News Service.

An Armenian museum sued the lawyer for Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s estate, claiming that Dr. Kevorkian donated his artworks to the museum, not to a niece who claims them. The disputed works include 17 paintings.

Via Courthouse News Service.

An update on the Cariou v. Prince copyright lawsuit. Basically Prince continues with his appeal, but all this means is that his appeal can begin before the damages trial.

Via the paper of record.

Renoir day.

Representatives for the estate of a Chicago couple who owned a landscape painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Illinois last month after an attempt to sell the work at auction was blocked when the auction house discovered evidence that the work might be one of several sold under duress in Europe in the 1930s because of the Nazi regime.

Last March, 2010, we posted about a lawsuit by artist Derek Seltzer against Green Day, Warner Bros. Records, and others for misappropriating his copyrighted work, Scream Icon, which Seltzer had put on posters and stickers and displayed on public spaces around Los Angeles.

Well, last month, a federal judge from the Central District of California agreed with Green Day et al., finding that “the different visual elements [their designer] added, including graffiti, a brick backdrop, and (especially) the large red cross over the image, considered in connection with the music and lyrics of East Jesus Nowhere, ‘add something new, with a further purpose or different character’ than Plaintiff’s original work.”

In other words, the secondary use was transformative, and thus fell squarely within fair use. We already know that artists have to be critically aware of how, and why, they appropriate. There is another lesson in this case to be learned by artists; careful what you say about the defendant’s use of your copyrighted work. The quote below from plaintiff Seltzer:

“[T]ainted the original message of the image and [...] made it now synonymous with lyrics, a video, and concert tour that it was not originally intended to be used with….. I make an image, I produce it, I tailor it to my needs, the concept, the content, and then someone comes along, defaces the image, puts a red cross on it. I mean, maliciously devalues the original intent and then shows it to thousands upon thousands of people.”

It seems the judge took this as an affirmative explanation by the original artist that Green Day’s appropriation was in fact transformative.

A good day for copyright schizophrenics!

Via the Hollywood Reporter. Background here.

Artinfo reports today that the lawsuit against the Gagosian Gallery for “shock, debasement, fright, fear, humiliation, embarrassment, psychological and emotional trauma, physical and mental injury, pain and suffering” has been dismissed. Last May, Judge Daniels of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the suit against Gagosian, alleging that the gallery could not be held responsible for the excessive force used by police.