Lynn Goldsmith’s Victory Against the Warhol Foundation is Huge for Photographers – PhotoShelter Blog

Lynn Goldsmith’s Victory Against the Warhol Foundation is Huge for Photographers – PhotoShelter Blog

In 1981, Newsweek hired photographer Lynn Goldsmith to photograph Prince, an up-and-coming musician who was still years away from releasing his seminal “Purple Rain” album. Goldsmith’s portraits never ran, but she did own the copyright.  In 1984, Vanity F

via PhotoShelter Blog: https://blog.photoshelter.com/2021/03/lynn-goldsmiths-victory-against-the-warhol-foundation-is-huge-for-photographers/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PhotoshelterBlog+%28PhotoShelter+Blog%29

Upon Prince’s death in 2016, the Warhol Foundation licensed the Prince Series for use in a Condé Nast tribute magazine, and one of the images was used on the cover. Goldsmith tried to extract a licensing fee, but the Foundation accused her of a “shake down” and filed a pre-emptive lawsuit in 2017. The suit sought a “declaratory judgment” that Warhol’s images didn’t infringe upon Goldsmith’s copyright and were “transformative or are otherwise protected by fair use.” Goldsmith countersued for infringement.