PATRICK CARIOU, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. RICHARD PRINCE, Defendant-Appellant, GAGOSIAN GALLERY, INC., LAWRENCE GAGOSIAN, Defendants-Cross-Defendants-Appellants., 714 F.3d 694

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The court held that the district court imposed an incorrect legal standard when it concluded that, in order to qualify for a fair use defense under 17 U.S.C.S. § 107, the artist's work had to comment on the photographer, the photographs, or on aspects of popular culture closely associated with the photographer or the photographs. The court ruled that 25 of the artworks made fair use of the copyrighted photographs because the artworks presented a new expression, meaning, or message. The artworks were transformative because they manifested an entirely different aesthetic from the photographs since the artist's composition, presentation, scale, color palette, and media were fundamentally different and new compared to the photographs, as was the expressive nature of the artist's work. The artist's audience was very different from the photographer's audience, and there was no evidence that the artist's work ever touched, much less usurped, either the primary or derivative market for the ...