Remember our piece awhile back on appropriation and Richard Prince? http://www.visualconnections.com/blog/the-apotheosis-of-appropriation-richard-prince/

The court cast would appear to be heating up again. To recap:

From PetaPixel: In 2014, controversial artist Richard Prince had an exhibit of reappropriated Instagram images at the Gagosian Gallery in NYC, selling the prints for up to $100k each. He sought no permission for the Instagram images used, which led to photographer Donald Graham suing for copyright infringement. A judge has now ruled the suit can proceed.

In a gallery exhibition titled “New Portraits,” Prince displayed 38 portraits featuring other people’s photos that he had selected from his Instagram feeds. Some of these pieces sold for up to $100,000, despite being little more than enlarged Instagram screenshots.

The NYTimes reports that after Graham filed a lawsuit in 2015, Mr. Prince, the Gagosian Gallery, and Larry Gagosian asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the work was transformative.

However, US District Judge Sidney H. Stein has just ruled that the case would not be dismissed, saying “The primary image in both works is the photograph itself. Prince has not materially altered the composition, presentation, scale, color palette and media originally used by Graham.”

In a since-deleted tweet on July 19, Prince responded to the lawsuit:

Phony fraud photographers keep mooching me. Why? I changed the game. &their wizardry professorial boredom keeps coughing up a vick’sVAPOrub.
— Richard Prince (@RichardPrince4)

This time, things may go differently for Mr. Prince. More in NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/20/arts/design/richard-prince-instagram-copyright-lawsuit.html?_r=0

The Petapixel Pod Cast has an interesting take over here – well worth your time:

https://petapixel.com/2017/07/30/ep-198-richard-no-prince/