Major fair use victory in court

img-cariou1_182213651755.jpg_standalone“This decision absolutely clarifies that the law does not require that a new work of art comment on any of its source material to qualify as fair use,” attorney Virginia Rutledge told A.i.A. by phone this morning after a preliminary survey of the decision.

“This is a major win for Prince on at least two counts,” NYU art law professor Amy Adler told A.i.A. via e-mail. (She consulted on the case but was speaking for herself.) “The court decided that artwork does not need to comment on previous work to qualify as fair use, and that Prince’s testimony is not the dispositive question in determining whether a work is transformative. Rather the issue is how the work may reasonably be perceived. This is the right standard because it takes into account the underlying public purpose of copyright law, which should not be beholden to statements of individual intent but instead consider the value that all of us gain from the creation of new work.”

Read the full article at ArtInAmericanMagazine.com.

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