The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has agreed to pay photographer Lynn Goldsmith roughly $21,500, closing a longstanding legal dispute that reached the U.S. Supreme Court last year. The justices in the case rendered a significant ruling that the silkscreens of music icon Prince, made by Andy Warhol and based on a Goldsmith photograph, did not come under fair use.
This dispute between Goldsmith and the Warhol Foundation stems from the artist’s use of Goldsmith’s photo to produce a series of silkscreen prints of Prince. Goldsmith claimed that the artworks infringed upon her copyright, leading to a significant legal battle about the nature and boundaries of fair use in contemporary art. The Supreme Court’s decision marked an important commentary on the infringement versus transformative use dichotomy in copyright law.
The Foundation’s agreement to make a payment to Goldsmith effectively ends the so-called ‘Orange Prince’ row which had significant ramifications for artists and copyright holders alike.
For more detailed analysis on the case and its implications, refer to the original report at Law360.