Copyright Law

"The historically black school says if it can?t turn the art into $30 million cash, it may have to close its doors"

Posted on August 11, 2010
"The state Attorney General suggests Fisk is bluffing."The Fisk trial is underway.What I don't get is why people seem to feel that unless Fisk's condition is absolutely dire (as opposed to merely really really really bad), the Correct View of the case is to be opposed to the sale...

Linkage

Posted on August 11, 2010
VARA suit in Pennsylvania.The fine art of crime.Chelsea Art Museum in trouble.Art & law residency program.Tax-free housing for museum directors.

"We all saw that a one-size-fits-all approach was not going to work"

Posted on August 10, 2010
The Brodsky Bill appears to be dead. Robin Pogrebin has the story in the NYT. I won't be shedding any tears, though, as Pogrebin reports, the New York Board of Regents plans to make permanent the "emergency regulations" it put in place in 2008, which achieve much the same effect.

Shepard Fairey is still getting sanctioned

Posted on August 09, 2010
Ben Sheffner explains here (in the comments).

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Linkage

Posted on August 09, 2010
Lehman Brothers art for sale.Financial problems at the Folk Art Museum.Last chance for "thousands of small exempt organizations that could lose exempt status because of the failure to file a Form 990."

"[I]t still seems reasonable to conclude that Dr. Barnes would consider selling it and more to preserve the integrity of the main collection"

Posted on August 05, 2010
Friend of the Barnes Evelyn Yaari suggests the Barnes move could have been prevented by the sale of some work. She's not the first.

"Many nonprofit organizations pleaded with New York lawmakers to reject the proposal"

Posted on August 05, 2010
The Chronicle of Philanthropy: "Nonprofit organizations across the country are concerned that a budget plan on the verge of adoption in New York State limiting charitable deductions for 'high earners' could catch on with other cash-starved state governments?and Congress?and cause a loss of significant contributions...

"I can?t believe it but New York finally did it!"

Posted on August 05, 2010
NY is set to pass UPMIFA. For background, see here. More here.

Linkage

Posted on August 05, 2010
Tackling graffiti in San Francisco.Cleaning up graffiti in Rome.Customs clampdown on art brought into the UK.

Linkage

Posted on August 04, 2010
Australians can continue to invest their retirement funds in art. (For background, see second item here.)Media groups seek to file amicus briefs in support of sports artist Daniel Moore.The problem of scrap metal theft.ARTnews on Robert Wittman.More on the Kustodiev authenticity dispute...

"I am truly sorry for my behavior. You trusted me and I betrayed you"

Posted on August 03, 2010
Salander sentenced.

"The restoration completes a reversal of physical decline that began in 1961"

Posted on August 02, 2010
I found it amusing that Philadelphia Inquirer art critic Edward Sozanski was able to write an entire, glowing piece on the Gross Clinic conservation (it "restored the masterpiece to something close to how it looked when it left the artist's studio") without once mentioning that the whole thing was made possible by a case of deaccessioning...

Fisk Trial About to Begin

Posted on August 02, 2010
Starts Aug. 11. The AP summarizes:"Fisk hopes to sell a 50% share in the collection, donated by the late painter Georgia O'Keeffe, with the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ark. The school would use the proceeds from the deal to shore up its finances...

"What?s more vital, a dead man?s acrimony, or the relationship between classic art and the public?"

Posted on August 02, 2010
Film critic Michael Atkinson reviews The Art of the Steal:"But the larger questions begin to nag, as it becomes clear that Argott?s position is that ... the limitations [Barnes] put on the collection?s use are by themselves pure, righteous and meaningful...

" It's an amazing and gripping article -- and totally calls into question pretty much all of Biro's work"

Posted on August 02, 2010
More praise for David Grann's recent New Yorker piece on Peter Paul Biro.

"The case was over wether Dosch reneged in 2008 over the purchase over a Picasso painting"

Posted on August 02, 2010
Josh Baer: "The Max Lang Gallery?s lawsuit against Ralph Dosch?s collection DOBE Fine Art went to trail and a jury awarded Lang a $2 million verdict."

"However, Adams said he is reluctant to claim that the sales are a copyright violation . . ."

Posted on August 02, 2010
". . . because that would require a legal acknowledgement that they are Ansel Adams images."The LAT's Mike Boehm points to an interesting Catch-22 in the story of the newly-discovered "Ansel Adams" negatives: if they really are by Adams, then it's a copyright violation for the guy who found them to make prints from them...

Linkage

Posted on July 28, 2010
Photographer sues "Fela!"Are nonprofit CEOs paid too much?New DMCA exemptions.

"Salander?s crimes were essentially about obtaining money under false pretences"

Posted on July 27, 2010
The Telegraph's Colin Gleadell summarizes the Salander saga.

"The art world is no more or less cloistered than the entertainment world, the landscape-gardening world, or the real-estate world"

Posted on July 27, 2010
Acquavella Galleries' Director Michael Findlay has a letter in this week's New Yorker, in response to David Grann's excellent article on Peter Paul Biro: "The fact that specialists in the work of a particular artist honestly disagree about an attribution no more damns the profession, or connoisseurship, as a genuine discipline than any disagreement between professionals, whether they be lawyers or doctors, scientists or art dealers...

"As in any exchange, both sides gained a surplus ?Beckmann a producer surplus, the gallery a consumer surplus"

Posted on July 27, 2010
The Freakonomics Blog on pricing paintings.

Linkage

Posted on July 27, 2010
Artist sues over Cartoon Network show.Judge Kozinski on idea vs. expression (in the context of the Bratz doll dispute).12 men sentenced in French forgery ring.

". . . to see which artists and works of art have succeeded in evading the corporate nudie radar"

Posted on July 27, 2010
The LAT's David Ng does some YouTube nudity research.

"The three-hour affair, replete with complimentary bagels and sandwiches, was to benefit creditors of Salander?s personal bankruptcy case"

Posted on July 27, 2010
Bloomberg's Philip Boroff reports.

Authenticity Suit Against Christie's

Posted on July 27, 2010
Involving a Boris Kustodiev painting. The Art Newspaper has the story here. More here from Forbes.

Tatintsian Settlement

Posted on July 27, 2010
The Art Newspaper's Charlotte Burns reports that Moscow dealer Gary Tatintsian's lawsuit against Luhring Augustine gallery has settled:"Roland Augustine and Lawrence Luhring said the gallery had offered the dealer four new [George] Condo paintings, plus a fifth work which Tatintsian had already agreed to buy, valued at $1...

"UA spends millions suing man who helped build its sports legacy"

Posted on July 27, 2010
"An estimated $1.5 million to $2 million, nearly five-and-a-half years of litigation, six U.S District Court judges and two appeals to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later, and the University of Alabama appears no closer to prevailing in its trademark infringement lawsuit against artist Daniel Moore than it was in March 2005...

FYI: The British Museums' Association is Completely Unethical

Posted on July 25, 2010
According to this piece by Tiffany Jenkins, the rules for deaccessioning in the UK are different than they are here:"Two years ago, the Museums? Association, the professional body for the sector, significantly altered its policy, softening its attitude towards the protection of the collection...

"The best article in the New Yorker this year"

Posted on July 25, 2010
Laura McKenna liked David Grann's piece on Peter Paul Biro too.And a commenter adds: "It's a terrific article. Particularly if you saw the movie Who the *$&% Is Jackson Pollock? I have to admit, I was totally taken in. Seems very convincing in the movie...

Important "First Sale" Doctrine Case

Posted on July 25, 2010
Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento discusses a Peter Hirtle post discussing what could be an enormously important copyright decision that not enough people are discussing. Under the Ninth Circuit's decision in Costco v. Omega, the owner of a foreign-made artwork still under copyright cannot display it in public without the copyright owner's consent...

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