The heirs of photographer James J. Marshall claim menswear designer John Varvatos and retail store Bloomingdales are reproducing and displaying Marshall’s photos of legendary musicians in stores without permission. Marshall’s Estate sued John Varvatos of California Inc., John Varvatos Enterprises Inc., John Varvatos and Bloomingdales, alleging copyright infringement.

Marshall’s estate seeks $150,000 in statutory damages, attorney fees, and an injunction.

Via Courthouse News Service.

Is this copyright taken to the extreme? Remember kids, ideas are not protected by copyright.

Via Boing Boing.

According to the LA Times,

This week, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland, announced on its website that it has acquired [Polish artist Zbigniew] Libera ‘s concentration camp creations. The museum said it purchased the artwork on Dec. 30 from a Norwegian art collector for 55,000 euros, or approximately $71,800. The museum described the pieces as “one of the most important works of contemporary Polish art.”

Interested in the Visual Artists Rights Act and moral rights? The Texas Law Review and its online companion publication, See Also, have just published a student note and a professorial reply concerning moral rights.  The student Note, Moral Rights: Well-Intentioned Protection and its Unintended Consequences, analyzes the concept and focuses serious criticism on the right of integrity.Professor Robert C. Bird replies in his essay, Of Geese, Ribbons, and Creative Destruction: Moral Rights and its Consequences.

Bird applauds Lindsey A. Mills’s reasoned criticisms and additions to the academic debate.  However, Professor Bird concludes by recognizing the “artistic doomsday rhetoric” that has been levied against moral rights and argues in favor of a measured approach to the issue.

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.

Midnight, January 2012. Via Artlyst:

The Resale tax allows heirs of artists who died in the past 70 years to get a share in the resale of works of art. Under the legislation, art dealers and auctioneers will have to pay the heirs, or estates up to four per cent of the sale price of artworks over €1,000 (£840). Each time you bid on a lot covered by the ARR, you agree to pay an amount equal to the resale royalty, “if you are the successful bidder. This amount will be added to your invoice”,Our Conditions of Sale have been amended accordingly”; Christie’s have stated. The maximum amount payable is a hefty €12,500 on each lot purchased.

Should every artist be happy about this? Not so, says Artlyst,

This in principle sounds fine, but in real terms, the only ones who stand to profit are the super rich artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin or the elitist estates of Picasso, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. …In the bigger scheme of things, questions should be raised as to what this means for younger and mid-career artists.

Are resale rights an analogous to copyright laws?

Follow this link if you’re interested on a European study on the effects of resale rights. And follow this link if you’re interested in the U.S. version of resale rights, and the recent California lawsuits.

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.