In a lighter moment, Justice Clarence Thomas at one point began one of his questions by invoking the rock legend whose image is at the center of the case. Supreme Court Will Hear Case Over Warhol’s Prince Portraits “Anyone could turn Darth Vader into a hero, or spin off ‘All In The Family’ into ‘The Jeffersons,’ without paying the creators a dime.” “Copyrights will be at the mercy of copycats,” said Lisa Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court litigator at the law firm Williams & Connolly LLP. An attorney for Warhol’s foundation warned that a loss would “chill” creativity and make “countless” works illegal, a result he called “repugnant to copyright and to the First Amendment.” An attorney for Goldsmith countered that a ruling for Warhol would effectively render copyright protection meaningless. Supreme Court, as the justices weighed a closely-watched copyright case that could have a “far-reaching impact on many creative industries.”ĭuring a two-hour hearing, the high court heard heated arguments over whether the late Warhol made a legal “fair use” of a photograph of Prince when he used it as the basis for a set of his distinctive screen prints – or merely infringed the copyrights of Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who snapped it.īoth sides claimed the stakes were high.

More than three decades after Andy Warhol‘s death and six years after Prince‘s sudden passing, the two pop culture icons took center stage Wednesday at the U.S.

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