Copyright Law

More on the "Assassination" Piece (UPDATED)

Posted on June 05, 2008
Constitutional scholar Eugene Volokh:"I appreciate that the Secret Service have an important and difficult job to do, but based on this account -- and I realize that it may be in error or incomplete -- it seems to me they went beyond what is allowed. It makes sense that they would have talked to Arboleda, and tried to figure out what he was doing in the storefront...

Astor Update

Posted on June 04, 2008
Brooke Astor's son has moved to dismiss the criminal case against him. It seems the thrust of his defense is going to be that the prosecution "cherry-picks" through a "clear pattern of well-informed generosity toward her only child" to allege that "other money and items that were transferred to Mr...

Today in Performance Art Legal News

Posted on June 04, 2008
Ann Althouse has the rundown:First:Performance artist Yazmany Arboleda set up a show called "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama" in a storefront across the street from the New York Times offices in Midtown. He says: "It?s art...

Anne d?Harnoncourt

Posted on June 04, 2008
William Grimes's New York Times obituary for the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Anne d?Harnoncourt closes with a mention of her crucial role in the Gross Clinic saga:"One of her recent achievements was a matter of local pride. In the fall of 2006, Thomas Jefferson University, a Philadelphia medical school, said that it would sell 'The Gross Clinic,' an 1875 masterpiece by the Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas...

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"Even in Canada . . ."

Posted on June 02, 2008
". . . art theft is more prevalent than most people imagine."

Salander Rugs

Posted on June 02, 2008
Bloomberg's Philip Boroff reports on Tepper Galleries' auction Friday of "nearly 300 antique and 'semi-antique' carpets" from the bankrupt Salander-O'Reilly. No reserves, minimum bids of just $10. The sale raised about $250,000 in total.

"My aim is to show the beauty of death"

Posted on May 30, 2008
UCLA lawprof Eugene Volokh comments on the legal aspects of German artist Gregor Schneider's planned performance piece that would include an actual person dying. His "tentative answer" is that it's probably legal: "The dying are as entitled to be in a place as anyone else, and invite people to visit them or see them...

White Flag

Posted on May 29, 2008
Montgomery County is throwing in the towel in the Barnes fight. It will not appeal Judge Ott's most recent decision dismissing its challenge to the move.Now it's up to the Friends of the Barnes to decide what to do.

"It addresses a narrow but growing problem in a way that ensures that good actors and our culture benefit"

Posted on May 29, 2008
Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn spoke about the orphan works legislation at the Eighth Annual Intellectual Property Symposium today. The text of her speech is here. InformationWeek has a summary here.Among other things, she addresses what she calls "the fear, uncertainty and doubt" being raised by opponents of the bill, including the following:"Myth #4: The bills would mandate registration of all visual art in expensive, private registries, and not registering a work would automatically orphan it...

Randolph Sale

Posted on May 28, 2008
Despite considerable opposition, Randolph College's deaccessioned Tamayo has just sold for more than $7 million at Christie's. Lee Rosenbaum breaks the news.

"Probably best left to bored, art-loving fictional playboys"

Posted on May 28, 2008
One of the guest bloggers over at Matthew Yglesias's place has some fun (probably a little too much fun) with Smithsonian magazine's recent list of the ten "most incredible art heists of the modern era." She writes:"Whatever the reason, big heists are always fun to think about after the fact...

Today's Orphan Works Report

Posted on May 28, 2008
The British Journal of Photography is urging its readers to oppose the U.S. orphan works bill:"The proposed legislation would legalise the use of such images if an attempt has been made to trace the owner. Critics - ie, pretty much anyone who trades on their own copyright ownership - say the proposals will kill international accords and encourage widespread theft...

Who knew?

Posted on May 28, 2008
I learned from Instapundit this morning that "many claim" that the Indiana Jones character is based on Hiram Bingham, of Yale-Machu Picchu dispute fame.

More on Art Title Insurance

Posted on May 28, 2008
BusinessWeek has an update on the art title insurance being offered by ARIS:"Art title insurance through ARIS has been available for purchase since June, 2006, and it has underwritten more than 300 policies. ARIS clients include private collectors, dealers, art funds, and major museums and investment entities, and the values of the works insured have ranged from $20,000 to $4 million...

Despite considerable opposition

Posted on May 27, 2008
The New Yorker reminds us that leading Christie's two-day sale of twentieth-century Latin-American art this week is Rufino Tamayo's ?Trovador? -- "it is being sold off, despite considerable opposition, by the museum of Randolph College to benefit the school?s endowment...

"To what culture does the concept of 'cultural property' belong?"

Posted on May 27, 2008
In today's New York Times, Edward Rothstein writes about James Cuno's "Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage" (mentioned earlier here):"Seen in this light the very notion of cultural property is narrow and flawed. ... It may be useful as a metaphor, but it has been more commonly used to consolidate cultural bureaucracies and state control...

Esmerian Sale

Posted on May 27, 2008
Ralph Esmerian sold his "Peaceable Kingdom" at Sotheby's last week for $9.7 million, reportedly a record for American folk art. As Bloomberg's Philip Boroff reports, Esmerian promised the work to the American Folk Art Museum back in 2000, but "about three years ago also pledged it to Sotheby's as collateral for a loan...

Booze Bust

Posted on May 27, 2008
East Hampton gallerist Ruth Vered was taken away in handcuffs this weekend for serving alcohol at a gallery opening without a license. Both the Daily News ("Hamptons Gone Wild") and the Post ("Fine Whine") put it on the front page. You can watch video of the arrest here...

Some Salander News

Posted on May 24, 2008
From Wendy Moonan's "Antiques" column in yesterday's New York Times:"One casualty of the bankruptcy of the Salander-O?Reilly Galleries ... is its largely unknown collection of decorative arts: European antiques, architectural ornaments and garden sculpture...

"It just shuts us down"

Posted on May 23, 2008
An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week mentioned that Montgomery County is "unlikely" to appeal Judge Ott's latest decision in the Barnes case. The Friends of the Barnes are still thinking about it.The article also says the County/Friends are "looking west for a strategy" -- a reference to a recent decision of the Montana Supreme Court which the New York Times described as follows:"The Montana Supreme Court dismissed ...

No. 9

Posted on May 22, 2008
Performance artist Karen Finley, no stranger to legal controversy, debuted a new, law-related piece tonight. Sewell Chan has the details.

Scream Back on View

Posted on May 21, 2008
"Edvard Munch's masterpiece 'The Scream' goes back on display this week for the first time since it was stolen four years ago but has suffered permanent damage, museum officials said Wednesday. Masked gunmen stole the work and another Munch masterpiece, 'Madonna,' in a brazen daylight raid on the Munch Museum in August 2004...

"I think it?s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission"

Posted on May 20, 2008
A piece in this week's New York magazine notes that "Tom Sachs didn?t bother to get permission from Hello Kitty?s owner, Sanrio, before he installed his enormous Hello Kitty sculptures in front of Lever House." He says "Hello Kitty is so much a part of our popular culture, I don?t think anyone really owns it...

Paducah

Posted on May 20, 2008
A story in the special Summer Travel section of this Sunday's New York Times on how art and law came together to revive the rundown town of Paducah, Kentucky:"[Artist] Mark Barone ... was fed up with the neighborhood and challenged the city to do something about it...

"I believe it is mostly neuroeconomics at work, namely that we are more excited by new offerings than by familiar offerings"

Posted on May 20, 2008
Tyler Cowen on "the afternoon effect" for artworks -- i.e., "the observation that as an auction proceeds, the prices of the lots decline, even for identical goods (e.g., wines)."

Art, YouTube, and the Law

Posted on May 20, 2008
The always-interesting Virginia Heffernan had a column in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine on an exhibition, at the Kitchen gallery, of videos chosen from YouTube. Rebecca Tushnet (who is also always interesting) gives a tour of the (many) IP issues the project raises, including whether the Times might be liable for linking to the videos ("inducement, anyone?").

Lessig on Orphan Works

Posted on May 20, 2008
In a New York Times op-ed today, Stanford's Larry Lessig weighs in on the orphan works legislation making its way through Congress. He's against it: "This 'reform' would be an amazingly onerous and inefficient change, which would unfairly and unnecessarily burden copyright holders with little return to the public...

"Maybe it's the trustees and administrators who ought to be deaccessioned"

Posted on May 19, 2008
Lee Rosenbaum notes, with displeasure, that Randolph College is about to sell one of the four works it originally planned to offer last November but which were then tied up in a (now withdrawn) lawsuit seeking to block the sale.Lee offers the following analogy in support of her no-deaccessioning policy: "If someone were to suggest that funds be raised by selling important books from the library, that (one hopes) would be a non-starter: Books go to the core of the college's educational mission...

So derivative

Posted on May 17, 2008
Robert Bernstein and Robert Clarida had a piece ($) in yesterday's New York Law Journal on the recent string of cases dealing with the question whether a photograph of a three-dimensional object is a "derivative work" under copyright law. Two district courts have said no, but the Ninth Circuit and one district court have said yes...

Tolerable

Posted on May 17, 2008
Interesting article by Columbia IP scholar Tim Wu on "tolerated use" -- "a term that refers to the contemporary spread of technically infringing, but nonetheless tolerated use of copyrighted works."Wu had a more accessible version, for a broader audience, at slate...

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