Copyright Law

Orphan Works Act Update

Posted on September 28, 2008
It's passed in the Senate. Now on to the House, which, as Photo District News points out, has been considering a slightly different version.

Genuine Faker

Posted on September 28, 2008
The U.K. Independent has the latest on famous forger John Myatt, mentioned earlier here and here (and soon to be the subject of a major motion picture). He currently has a show at Harrods in London.

Embezzlement Suit

Posted on September 28, 2008
Fruitlands Museum is suing its former deputy director and chief financial officer (and three of her children) for an alleged embezzlement scheme:"The suit alleges that Kempton and her children obtained credit cards in the museum's name and made personal purchases...

Le Rêve on View

Posted on September 28, 2008
The Picasso painting that Steve Wynn put his elbow through in 2006 will be publicly exhibited for the first time since the accident in a show opening Oct. 15 at Acquavella Galleries in New York. More here from Bloomberg's Lindsay Pollock. Wynn ended up suing Lloyd's of London over the proper valuation of the loss (he claimed it was $54 million)...

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"Just as when you sell a painting at Sotheby's, nobody knows what it's worth until the auction is over"

Posted on September 26, 2008
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

"Too far, and not far enough"

Posted on September 24, 2008
Mark Dery on the orphan works bill:"As written, the OWA won?t solve anything. With its impossibly vague talk of 'reasonable compensation' and 'diligent' searches, its fundamentalist faith in the private sector (commercial registries) and technological quick-fixes (image-search technologies), the OWA is, as Lessig argued on his blog, a bill that both 'goes too far, and not far enough...

"The easy part is stealing it; the hard part is selling it"

Posted on September 22, 2008
"Living legend" FBI art-squad agent Robert Wittman retired last week. Stories here and here. Earlier post here.Next chapter: he's going to work for the Fox Rothschild law firm, to "assist security directors in museums, galleries and auction houses to protect their collections and represent collectors...

Catching Up

Posted on September 22, 2008
Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento points to a couple of stories I missed last week.One:"Thieves have stolen an engraving by Spanish master Francisco de Goya from a temporary exhibition in Colombia. The engraving ... was one of 80 by the Spanish artist on loan from the Goya Fuendetodos Cultural Corporation of Zaragoza, Spain...

"The greatest and most important earthwork in the world was potentially threatened by a corporation that wanted to make a buck"

Posted on September 22, 2008
It's Spiral Jetty week over at Tyler Green's place. From today's opener: "The question is: Is Spiral Jetty threatened by future commercial development? And are arts organizations, most of which have little or no experience in dealing with the confluence of interests and entities involved in preserving an artwork in the landscape, using all available and appropriate measures to save the Jetty?"I mentioned this story (and my client, the artist Nancy Holt) earlier here.

"Please know that you need to remove our logo and the NFL logo from all images"

Posted on September 19, 2008
The Washington Post reports on the latest squabble involving sports artists and trademark rights. At her 43(B)log, Rebecca Tushnet has a pithy summary: "painter paints a picture of Redskins player in uniform; wishes to sell painting; now there?s a dispute over the presence of Redskins [trade]marks in the painting...

Nelson-Atkins-Lawsuit

Posted on September 19, 2008
The Kansas City Star: "The Kansas City Council has interfered with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art?s ability to use its own real estate, according to a new lawsuit filed in federal court. The lawsuit, which the gallery?s foundation and trustees filed Wednesday, asked a judge to stop the city from enforcing an ordinance the council passed this summer that barred the museum from putting offices on property it owns near the gallery...

"These works belong, properly, in the place where the largest number of people can enjoy and learn from them"

Posted on September 17, 2008
An interesting student Note in the Notre Dame Law Review on fractional gifts of art (and I don't say that merely because it credits me with giving a name -- the "mismatch problem" -- to the most serious problem with the 2006 legislation on the subject)...

Savage Suit

Posted on September 17, 2008
From the New York Post: "A prominent art dealer is suing the makers of a movie that portrays him having incestuous three-way sex with an ex-girlfriend and the son who murdered her."The movie is "Savage Grace," starring Julianne Moore. The art dealer is Sam Green.

"Morganelli said that he is not looking to target any specific voting demographic by making this effort a part of his agenda"

Posted on September 16, 2008
The Temple News has more on Democratic candidate John Morganelli, who has made the Barnes battle an issue in the Pennsylvania attorney general election. "If he becomes attorney general, Morganelli would like the case reopened so that a judge can make a decision based on 'more balanced evidence...

Recovery

Posted on September 16, 2008
Dutch detectives have recovered five 17th-century paintings that were stolen from the Frans Hals Museum in 2002. "The Golden Age works, worth millions of dollars, were found after an 18-month investigation by Dutch police who used undercover agents to crack the case and worked closely with Britain's Serious and Organized Crime Agency...

"Anyone with a touch of larceny in his heart cannot but thrill to hear of such feats of expert-foxing legerdemain"

Posted on September 15, 2008
Terry Teachout on Jonathan Lopez?s ?The Man Who Made Vermeer: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren.?Here is another review, from the New York Sun: "In the case of art fraud, however, whatever admiration we feel for the skill of a forger who passes off a modern fake as a venerable Old Master and makes fools of the experts is mixed with a sharp sense of betrayal...

"The only party with the authority to seek to enforce those conditions is the attorney general"

Posted on September 12, 2008
So argues . . . the attorney general, in the Fisk-O'Keeffe appeal. The Tennessean reports here. Lee Rosenbaum thinks "it's time that Fisk realized that it's squandering money on a protracted, losing lawsuit that could be better spent on education (or on maintaining its distinguished art collection)...

Miro Suit

Posted on September 12, 2008
Josh Baer: "Frank Ribelin has sued Tom Schmidt and Christie?s alleging they tried to sell a work of his that had been stolen from the Jesuit Dallas Museum."The Courthouse News Service has more. The work is a Miro. Ribelin says it was stolen in 1991...

Heads Roll

Posted on September 11, 2008
Or at least a head:"David Mickenberg has resigned as director of Wellesley College's Davis Museum and Cultural Center, two weeks after news broke that the museum's prized 1921 painting by Fernand Léger had gone missing."Geoff Edgers has the full story in the Boston Globe...

"The thief, or thieves, was either very smart or very, very lucky"

Posted on September 10, 2008
The Los Angeles Times:"The side door of the home in the hills of Encino was unlocked on the Saturday morning in late August. The elderly owners were in a back room, otherwise occupied. The maid had stepped out. So the thief stepped in -- and made quick work of the wealthy real estate investors' multimillion-dollar art collection...

More on Taxation of Postmortem Publicity Rights

Posted on September 09, 2008
Back in April, I mentioned a piece in the Yale Law Journal "Pocket Part" examining the estate tax implications of some newly enacted California publicity rights legislation. In the current "Pocket Part," SMU's Joshua Tate responds.

"The problem concerns the exploitation of works whose authors or rights holders cannot be located"

Posted on September 08, 2008
Columbia law professor Jane Ginsburg on the proposed orphan works legislation.A taste:"The bills define a 'qualifying search' as a 'diligent effort to locate the owner of the infringed copyright.' ... To assist in searching, section 3 of the bills provides that the Copyright Office is to keep a database of pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, and the effective date of the act, with respect to those works, is delayed by four years (1/1/09 for other works; 1/1/13 for pictorial, graphic and sculptural works)...

"They are also charged with attempting to defeat the ends of justice"

Posted on September 08, 2008
"Five men have appeared in court accused of demanding £4.25m for the safe return of a Leonardo da Vinci painting. The Madonna with the Yarnwinder was taken from Drumlanrig Castle ... in August 2003. Its disappearance from the stately home became Britain's biggest art theft; an international hunt for the painting followed and it appeared on the FBI's top 10 most wanted pieces of stolen art...

More on the Sotheby's-Minor Suit

Posted on September 05, 2008
The New York Times has more today on the dispute between Sotheby's and Cnet founder Halsey Minor, which I mentioned earlier this week.I've also heard directly from Minor, who gave me permission to print the following email:"Sotheby?s is spending all their time talking about what I said at this time or at that time or why I didn?t have the money, etc, etc...

Minor Dispute

Posted on September 04, 2008
Bloomberg reports that Sotheby's is suing Cnet founder Halsey Minor in the Southern District of New York for failing to pay $16.8 million for the purchase of three works of art, including the "Peaceable Kingdom" recently sold by Ralph Esmerian.Minor "said in an interview today that he refused to pay ...

Kick-off

Posted on September 04, 2008
From Artnet News: " The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago is hosting an event with the Art Dealers Association of America, Sept. 8, 2008, 6-8 pm, designed to draw public attention and support to the 'Artist Museum Partnership Act,' which is currently languishing in Congress...

Phish Food

Posted on September 03, 2008
The Guardian reports:"A convict on death row in America has agreed to let his body be made into a work of art if his final appeal against execution fails. Gene Hathorn, who has been on death row since 1985, has given his consent for artist Marco Evaristti, the bad boy of the Danish art scene, to use his body as an art installation...

Duluth Deaccessioning

Posted on September 03, 2008
Responding to my post yesterday connecting Nigel Warburton's thoughts on Scotland's Titian problem to various recent U.S. deacessioning controversies, Derek Fincham points out that "the difference in Scotland and the UK is the process is somewhat more regulated...

"The lawsuits definitely impacted our enrollment because of the uncertainty they brought"

Posted on September 02, 2008
From the AP: "Lawsuits that challenged Randolph College's decisions to go coed and to sell valuable artwork have been resolved, but they apparently are having a lingering effect. The school's enrollment this fall is the lowest in about four decades, and officials say that's because prospective students were confused about the school's future...

"Has any museum or gallery ever been placed in such an appalling predicament?"

Posted on September 02, 2008
The Times Online: "Not only has John Leighton, director-general of the National Galleries of Scotland, got to find £50 million in only four months for Diana & Actaeon, one of Titian's masterpieces, but he has to find another £50 million in four years to buy its pendant, Diana & Callisto...

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