Warhol Foundation to Pay $21,000 to Settle Landmark ‘Fair Use’ Copyright Case

The Andy Warhol Foundation and photographer Lynn Goldsmith have settled a closely watched copyright case that reached the US Supreme Court last year.

Per a joint court filing Friday in the US District Court in Manhattan, Warhol’s estate agreed to pay more than $21,000, including $11,000 in legal fees, to resolve the years-long dispute. The initial suit was center ed around a Warhol artwork depicting the musician Prince that was based on a photograph by Goldsmith.

The Warhol Foundation’s legal representation Latham & Watkins said in a statement that the estate was “happy to put this litigation to rest and move forward with its work supporting up-and-coming artists.” 

The case involved a 1981 photograph Goldsmith took of Prince while on assignment for Newsweek. The magazine never used the photos, but Goldsmith retained the licensing for future use. Three years later, “Purple Rain” catapulted Prince to superstardom, and Vanity Fair paid $400 to license the image for Warhol to use as the reference for a screenprint.

Goldsmith stated in court documents that she was aware that the image was used by Warhol for the Vanity Fair commission and that he would subsequently use it as the basis for several artworks collectively dubbed the “Prince Series.” In 2016, the Andy Warhol Foundation preemptively sued Goldsmith after the photographer raised concerns over the use of the photograph by Warhol. When Prince died in 2016, Condé Nast magazine published one of Warhol’s Prince prints on the cover of its tribute edition. 

The case proved deeply divisive in the art world, given its broad implications for the doctrine of “fair use,” which in the United States dictates the extent to which artists are permitted to reproduce another creator’s content. Last year, the Supreme Court sided 7-2 in favor of Goldsmith, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing in the majority opinion that the photographer’s “original works, like those of other photographers, are entitled to copyright protection, even against famous artists.”

“Fair use” is a legal doctrine that permits the limited appropriation of intellectual property for purposes such as scholarship and news reporting, and has become a barometer of sort for the state of freedom of expression in America. Blockbuster cases involving major artists who rely on appropriated images, such as Jeff Koons and Richard Prince, have based their defenses on the doctrine, placing judges in the position of deciding whether the new artwork was appropriately “transformative”—that is, if it altered the original with “new expression, meaning or message,” per a precedent established in 1994 by the Supreme Court.

Notably, the Supreme Court ruling was decided by commercial concerns, rather than aesthetic calls. Warhol, who died in 1987, had infringed on Goldsmith’s copyright because both images served “the same commercial purpose.” The judges, however, did not apply this decision to the entirety of Warhol’s “Prince Series.”

“AWF’s position is that the original creation of the Prince Series was fair use, and that nothing in the Supreme Court’s opinion undermines that view,” the foundation wrote in the joint filing. With the settlement, the foundation has withdrawn its lawsuit against Goldsmith.

A legal representative for Goldsmith did not respond to a request for comment.