One of the most important parts of the ruling was in how it was used.
Fair use has always stated and implied use for critics, teaching, and other uses that don’t compete with the creator’s use.
In this case Goldsmith was a commercial entity. Warhol took the art and created a piece that he used to compete in the market. He licensed that work for money. So he and Goldsmith were doing the same thing with the art.
Had Warhol simply used the screen printed piece as a piece of art, it could’ve been considered fair use.
I met Warhol many years ago.
Super glad Goldsmith won.
The tech bros are not happy and are squirming and whining about this being the death of creativity. They expected Goldsmith to lose and give them a free pass to ‘appropriate’ any and everything they can.
Will this stifle the wholesale theft of IP by ethics challenged billionaires?
I fear it won’t.
We’re supposed to own nothing and be happy.