The US Copyright Office would like to hear from those who have interest in copyright records and get thoughts on how we would search these records and how we would like to see the records displayed. Very nice.

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.

From The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat:

The Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat announced that it will dissolve in September 2012 and no longer consider applications thereafter. The Authentication Committee has been in existence for eighteen years and has reviewed over 2,000 works of art. It believes that it has fulfilled its goal of providing the public with an opportunity to obtain an opinion as to the authenticity of works purportedly created by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Committee wishes to take this opportunity to thank all the people who worked on its behalf.

Problem? Students surf the web too much.

The Velvet Underground has sued the Andy Warhol Foundation, accusing it of infringing the trademark for the banana design on the cover of the rock group’s first album in 1967.

However, the Velvet Underground never received trademark registration for the image from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The band argues instead that it earned trademark rights by virtue of years of association with it.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan claimed the foundation slipped up when it licensed the design for use on iPhone and iPad products and has ignored repeated requests to stop licensing the banana image.

Via The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, and The San Francisco Chronicle.

I don’t think so, but see what you think. My good friend, and fellow artist-lawyer, Alfred Steiner, has taken it upon himself to dabble in some potential legal trouble. You see, Steiner

…bought a glob-erific clown painting by Allison Schulnik at Canada gallery on the Lower East Side. He then proceeded to have a replica of the work fabricated on a ZPrinter 650 3D printer. The result is a quite good monochromatic reproduction of the painting that is full of the brushstrokes and textures that until recently we thought we couldn’t so easily reproduce.

Steiner, having quite a bit of experience in copyright law, contacted Schulnik and alerted her to his alleged infringement. But is what Steiner did actually copyright infringement? At this late hour (11:00pm EST), I would have to say, not at all.

You see, one great aspect of painting is the use/non-use of color paint. In this case, to make a monochrome painting copy of an impastoed/expressionistic painting is synonymous to making a black version of a Robert Ryman or a pink version of a gray Gerhard Richter. At that point, one can easily concede that the copy is based more on inspiration than on infringement, regardless of the clown face on Schulnik’s painting. Schulnik’s clown face, one can certainly argue, is a generic representation of a clown face. To say that Steiner’s white version is a derivative work, and therefore infringing on Schulnik’s painting, would be tantamount to saying that no other artist could paint a clown face impasto-style, white or in color. Silly indeed.

But, and as my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Cabbines, used to remark, “and this is a big but,” the real question is whether the mechanical reproduction of Schulnik’s painting is in fact infringement, where the copyright protection rests also on the sculptural aspects of Schulnik’s work. In this case, now we’re talking. And, I might add, the legal question gets more interesting (and juicier) if we ask how exactly Steiner went about copying Schulnik’s work. Why? Because if there is any, and by this I mean any, detrimental physical impact on Schulnik’s work, Steiner may just have triggered the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, which protects an artist’s painting (among a few other types of fine art) from distortion, modification, or destruction.

Until we know the exact process Steiner used to copy Schulnik’s work, we won’t know whether or not Schulnik’s moral rights to her painting were violated.

A great art project indeed!

More on this via Hyperallergic.

Artists, tell the U.S. Copyright Office how you would benefit from a court system where you could protect your copyrights and file small copyright claims. Because January 16 is a federal holiday (commemoration of the birthday of Martin Luther King), the deadline for submission of comments has been extended to January 17, 2012.

The Copyright Act protects a wide variety of works of authorship, from individual articles or photographs that may not have a high commercial value to motion pictures worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the marketplace. The copyright owners of all of these works can use copyright law to pursue certain unauthorized uses. Not all of these copyright owners, however, have the same resources to bring a federal lawsuit, which can require substantial time, money, and effort. Moreover, while a copyright owner may want to stop an infringement that caused a relatively small amount of economic damage, that owner may be dissuaded from filing a lawsuit because a potentially small award may not justify the potentially large expense of litigation. While the Act offers the possibility of statutory damages and attorney fees, these benefits are not available in all cases and parties cannot recover them until after the copyright owner has engaged in a potentially long court battle that requires up front costs.

The Copyright Office has been asked by Congress to study the obstacles facing small copyright claims disputes, as well as possible alternatives. Specifically, the Office is to undertake a study to: (1) assess the extent to which authors and other copyright owners are effectively prevented from seeking relief from infringements due to constraints in the current system; and (2) furnish specific recommendations, as appropriate, for changes in administrative, regulatory and statutory authority that will improve the adjudication of small copyright claims and thereby enable all copyright owners to more fully realize the promise of exclusive rights enshrined in our Constitution. The initial notice of inquiry seeks comment on how copyright owners have handled small copyright claims and the obstacles they have encountered, as well as potential alternatives to the current legal system that could better accommodate such claims.

You can submit your comments here.

Artinfo has more thoughts here.