The Copyright Clash Between Artists: A Quiz
Modern artists often “appropriate” copyrighted images by professional photographers and other visual artists and incorporate those images into new works of modern art. This leads to court battles with inconsistent results. The two leading copyright cases addressing these clashes are from the Second Circuit: Cariou (2013) and Warhol Foundation (2021).
Cariou involved a clash between artist Richard Prince and photographer Patrick Cariou over Richard Prince's appropriation of Cariou's images of Rastafarian culture. The Cariou court ruling took an expansive view of fair use. Warhol Foundation involved a clash arising from artist Andy Warhol's appropriation of photographer Lynn Goldsmith's image of the musician Prince. The Warhol Foundation court viewed the Cariou decision as going too far in its rationale.
On March 28, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the Second Circuit's decision in the Warhol Foundation case and resolve the rights of artists, photographers, and others.
The following is an interactive educational QUIZ based on actual court cases. For each case, you are asked to determine whether the final court decision in the case found the second image to be “transformative” of the first and, hence, a permitted "fair use" under copyright law. If you get more than 50% correct, you really know your stuff!
Note to Readers: Some of the images included in this quiz are of modern artwork that may be objectionable to some viewers. We have adopted an inclusionary approach to presenting artwork that formed a basis for current U.S. jurisprudence in this area of law.