WASHINGTON — Andy Warhol's posters of Prince, some shaded purple and others orange, may have been works of art, but they infringed the copyright of the photographer who captured the original image of the musician, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
In a 7-2 decision, the justices upheld the power of copyrights and mostly rejected the claim that artists and others may freely use original works if they transform them into something new and different.
Decades after Warhol died, the Andy Warhol Foundation continued to earn licensing fees for the use of his Prince series, while refusing to pay a fee to Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who took the images that the artist had relied upon.
