The judgment came out as 7-2, with Goldsmith as the winner. Despite arguments by the legal representatives of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, claiming that Warhol’s screen print artwork incorporated enough transformative elements to constitute a new creative work, the court found it unconvincing and deemed that Goldsmith’s work should be protected by copyright and entitled to the benefits from the fruit of the artistic creation. Background of the Case The story began in 1984 when Vanity Fair magazine sought to acquire the rights to Lynn Goldsmith’s photograph of Prince taken in 1981. The purpose was for Warhol to use it as a reference for creating artwork. The magazine intended to use the image as part of an article titled “Purple Fame” (to get along with Prince’s iconic song “Purple Rain”). At that time, Goldsmith was credited in the article, and she received $400 for the use…
