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.

William Patry, senior copyright counsel at Google, opines on the public domain as well as current U.S. copyright terms and their detrimental effects.

Via CNN.

Seems like it. And now a custom car maker who goes by the name of Gotham Garage will have to prove that it did not infringe DC Comics’ copyright to the Batmobile. You see, Gotham Garage decided to build and sell replica Batmobiles — without DC Comics’ permission. DC Comics flew out of their bat cave (lower case “b” so as to not run the possibility of infringing DC Comics’ trademark) and sued Gotham Garage claiming copyright infringement, trademark infringement, trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition under the Lanham Act, and common law unfair competition.  Yikes!

Anyhow, Judge Ronald Lew, of the Central District of California, found that Gotham Garage’s claim that the Batmobile was not protected by copyright to be, let’s just say, pure bat guano, meaning it had no teeth. Gotham Garage will now have to answer DC’s allegations that the full-size, drivable Batmobile replicas infringe DC’s rights to the car’s design.

For those of a legal persuasion, the case is DC Comics v. Mark Towle et al (2:11-cv-03934).

Via the Hollywood Reporter and Mr. Pink.

Patrick Cariou’s lawyers filed their appellate brief on Wednesday, January 25, 2012. The case, the Roe v. Wade of the artworld, is Cariou v. Prince.

The brief is available here, via pdf format on Scribd.

When asked if his use of a copyrighted photograph of Bob Marley in a judicial opinion was fair use, 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner had this to say.

“It’s not as if we’re selling our opinions in competition with a photographer,” he said. “Using the photo in a judicial opinion couldn’t conceivably be hurting the copyright holder.”

The case, Grayson v. Schuler, concerns the right of a prisoner with dreadlocks to refuse a haircut on religious grounds.

Via Reuters.

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.

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The Huffington Post’s Daniel Grant wonders if the Cariou v. Prince case will decide the “fate” of appropriation art. His article basically hammers in what we already know: that copyright law is a murky area, where the outcome of a fair use analysis is anyone’s guess.

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.

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.