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Can You Commit Copyright Infringement By Using Your Own Work?

Mrs. Grundy writes: Notorious appropriation artist Richard Prince has been in the news again with his show consisting of screen shots of other people's Instagram photos printed as large inkjets on canvas. These prints have reportedly sold for $90,000. In 2013 Prince successfully defeated a lawsuit for a previous appropriation by convincing the court his work was 'transformative' and it's likely this new work would also find a sympathetic ear in the court. Among the photographs whose work he used this time were several from the Suicide Girls Instagram feed. In response, Selena Mooney, cofounder of Suicide Girls, began offering exact replicas of Prince's pieces that used her photographs for a mere $90. Photographer Mark Meyer looks at the bizarre possibility that if Prince's use of Mooney's work is transformative and fair, Mooney's might be copyright infringement.

4 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Correct, but silly by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's simple, if it's copyrighted, it's copyrighted. It doesn't matter that it's a derivative of your own earlier works. That a screenshot (of someone else's work) is copyrightable is the problem. If you were to copy his method to come to a similar (or even identical) work, you'd be legal, but to copy his exact work, it doesn't matter that it's transformative of your original work.

    These issues have been well explored in music, where "borrowing" from others is well known and broadly practiced.

    1. Re:Correct, but silly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Richard Prince is using entire photographs so I don't think it's a pointless rhetorical question at all. In fact: it seems highly relevant to the discussion at hand.

  2. Re:stupid by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is if you have the right lawyers.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Re:stupid by Lehk228 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    so much of what passes for art these days is degenerate shit.

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.