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Supreme Court to hear case about Andy Warhol art, Prince photo

Andy Warhol
Posted at 3:48 PM, Mar 28, 2022
and last updated 2022-03-28 15:48:46-04

The Supreme Court has agreed to review a copyright dispute involving works of art by the artist Andy Warhol that were based on a photograph of the musician Prince.

A lower court had at first said the artwork created before Warhol's 1987 death was "fair use" of the photograph by Lynn Goldsmith because it had transformed the original work. But the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The Supreme Court said it would review that ruling.

The case will be argued sometime after the court begins its new term in October. Warhol created a series of 16 artworks based on a 1981 photo taken by Goldsmith. Prince died in 2016.

Vanity Fair paid $400 to license the photograph that Warhol would use to create his own work, the Associated Press reported.