Since Andy Warhol died in 1987 – the Supreme Court was probably\/technically ruling against his “estate” in their recent decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Warhol had used a photograph of Prince (“The Artist”) in a 1980’s painting (“Orange Prince”) – money changed hands among the concerned parties back in the early 1980’s so there wasn’t any problem until Prince Rogers Nelson died in 2016 and the Warhol image was used in some publications<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the crux of the issue was that back in the early 1980s Mr Warhol had paid for “one time use” of the photograph – SO was using Warhol’s painting in a magazine 30 years later a violation of the photographers copyright?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously the issue was convoluted enough that it ended up before the Supreme Court – so I won’t try to summarize it here – short form: the Supreme Court said “yes, the usage violated the copyright holders rights”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
now, ordinary folks might ask – what about the estate of “Prince Rogers Nelson” shouldn’t they have been involved somehow? well, again, the case was about COPYRIGHT – so it is the COPYRIGHT holder that was seeking redress<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SO when Prince’s music was played (assuming his estate still owned the copyrights) – THEY got paid, but the copyright holder of the photograph was\/is the photographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just like in the music industry where “every time the music is played, SOMEONE gets paid” because of copyright – in the photography business “every time the picture gets used, someone gets paid” i.e. the copyright owner.
Of course there is also the concept of “work for hire” – e.g. when Perry White sent out cub reporter Jimmy Olsen – the pictures Jimmy took belonged to the newspaper because they were paying young Mr Olsen to do a job.
Peter Parker on the other hand was a freelance photographer for the JJ Jameson at the Daily Bugle – so Mr Parker got paid for his photographs and probably retained the rights to his work.
I suppose if we could find a real copy of the Daily Planet the copyright notice on a picture Jimmy Olsen took would say “Copyright YEAR Daily Planet publishing” but a real copy of the Daily Bugle with a picture from Peter Parker would say “Copyright YEAR Peter Parker”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In either case Superman or Spider-Man weren’t getting paid because they were performing in the public arena. Maybe they would have been received a “session fee” if they arranged a time and intentionally posed in front of the camera – but you get the idea …<\/p>\n\n\n\n
just in general if you are a “public person” doing your thing “in public” then photographs taken of you “in public” are the property of the photographer – e.g. this is how “paparazzi” make a living<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if you go to a Taylor Swift concert and take pictures of the performance – then YOU own the photographs and can do what you want with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
which means that it is possible for an artist to violate the copyright law by using a picture of themselves without the permission of the photographer. It happens on a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of course there is also the “Dave Chappell” solution where the performer can prohibit phones\/cameras at the performance as a condition of entry — but that is an additional expense and MOST of the time performers want the publicity when they are “performing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
when they AREN’T performing is when the “negative” side of fame becomes an issue – but that is a different subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point of having “copyright laws” is to allow artists to profit from their creative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are folks out there that will argue that copyright laws “stifle creativity.” Well, you don’t need to be a student of history to see through that strawman argument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consider Mr Shakespeare – writing 400+ years ago before “copyright laws” – how did he make “money?” Well, his “acting companies” had “benefactors” – which was why they were the “Lord Chamberlain’s Men” and then when King James I became their benefactor in 1603 thy became “King’s Men.” Then they also received money from performing productions\/ticket sales.
The idea of “publishing rights” back then was non-existent. The moveable type printing press had only made it to Europe in 1455 – so obviously “copyrights” were not an issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which means there were no “professional writers” back then – maybe a lot of “playwrights” and folks that had time to “write” as a hobby, but it was not possible to “make a living” as a “writer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”<\/p>Benjamin Franklin<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n It should be pointed out that Mr Franklin made his fortune as a PRINTER. Ol’ Ben was obviously a gifted writer – but he made money<\/em> by printing and selling his writing – so he understood the need for “copyright laws” as a profit incentive to creatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since Andy Warhol died in 1987 – the Supreme Court was probably\/technically ruling against his “estate” in their recent decision. Mr Warhol had used a photograph of Prince (“The Artist”) in a 1980’s painting (“Orange Prince”) – money changed hands among the concerned parties back in the early 1980’s so there wasn’t any problem until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-history","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iterudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}