The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of a photographer who claimed her intellectual property rights were violated by Andy Warhol’s eponymous foundation when it published multiple stylized prints he made based on her photo of the iconic musician Prince.
Warhol, a painter, print-maker, and multimedia artist, died in 1987 at age 58. Prince, who was born Prince Rogers Nelson, died in 2016 at 57.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion (pdf) in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (AWF) v. Goldsmith, court file 21-869. Justice Elena Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, which Chief Justice John Roberts joined.
The case goes back to 1984 when Conde Nast-owned Vanity Fair magazine commissioned Warhol to create an image of Prince for an article titled “Purple Fame.” The publication licensed a black-and-white photo of Prince from celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith who stipulated that the photo be used “one time” only….