Teaching the Law
& Ethics of Image
Use
Alex Watkins
Art & Architecture Librarian
University of Colorado Boulder
Art has always built on the Past
Apollo Belevedere
Michelangelo, David
Titian,
Venus of Urbino
Manet, Olympia
Picasso, Women with a Straw Hat
Jasper Johns, After Picasso
Lichtenstein, Whaam and the comic source
Andrea Blanch, Silk Sandals by Gucci
Jeff Koons, Niagara Falls
Images essential in a digital age
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Blogs
Presentations
Papers
Digital Scholarship
Websites
Flyers
Social Media
Art
Videos
Recycling imagery feels comfortable
and commonplace. If one lives in a
forest, wood will likely become one’s
medium for creative play. If one grows
up in a world filled with cheap,
disposable images, they easily become
the stuff of one’s own creative
expression
Olivia Gude
Session Plan
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Copyright & Fair Use
Teaching the law of image use
Ethics in image use
Teaching ethics
Case studies discussion
What is the purpose of copyright?
To promote creation of culture
By rewarding creators with limited
monopoly
Applies only to Fixed Expression
not the Idea
Ed Ruscha, Some Real Estate Opportunities
Eric Doeringer
Copyright for Images
Two Potential Layers of Copyright:
The underlying object & the photograph
Public Domain + Sufficiently
Creative
Work does not have copyright
Photo does not
have copyright
Photo has
copyright
Work has copyright
What is Fair Use?
It is legal, unauthorized use of
copyrighted material
Allowed because the culture
created is more valuable than the
monopoly
It creates a space for
creativity, and is a safety valve
for free speech
The Four factors:
Purpose and character of your use
Picasso Guitar, Newspaper, Glass, Bottle
The Four Factors:
The nature of the copyrighted work
Four Factors:
The amount and substantiality of the portion taken
Four Factors:
The effect of the use upon the potential market
Fair Use Narratives
Shepard Fairey
Mannie Garcia
Teaching Copyright & Fair Use
• No copyright scares, the point is
not to make students afraid.
• Case Studies + Discussion/Debate
• Have Students come up with their
own fair use narratives for their
work.
• Also an opportunity to discuss
Creative Commons and how to find
images effectively.
Ethics in Image Use
Art Rogers, Puppies
Jeff Koons, String of Puppies
Tom Forsythe, Food Chain Barbie
Art Rogers, Puppies
Jeff Koons, String of Puppies
Gillian Wearing, Signs that say what you want
them to say and not signs that say what
someone else wants you to say
Vaseline Ad, Sea of Skin
Spencer Turk photograph
Art Rogers, Puppies
Jeff Koons, String of Puppies
Patricia Caulfield
Andy Warhol
Shepard Fairey
Mannie Garcia
Patrick Cariou
Richard Prince
Morton Beebe, Cliff Diver at Acapulco
Robert Rauschenberg, Pull
they think it's just
a photograph
Arnold Newman
The reason there’s
a legal issue here is
because there’s a
moral one
Patricia Caulfield
Stephen Oakes, National Geographic
Lisa Congdon
Cory Archangel, Super Mario Clouds
Christian Marclay, The Clock
BuzzFeed
Daily Mail
Patrick Cariou, Yes Rasta
Richard Prince, Canal Zone
The ethnographic photograph is perhaps the
paradigmatic appropriative object, born of an
aggressive technology in contexts of political
and cultural domination. Such photographs
present a fixed point, literally, figurally, and
metaphorically, of dispossession and
appropriation. They render the bodies of the
powerless through the intellectual and
ideological categories of the powerful in
relation to a series of dynamic axes-race,
gender, subjugation, and their social
classifications.
Elizabeth Edwards
Patrick Cariou, Yes Rasta
Richard Prince, Canal Zone
Patricia Caulfield
Andy Warhol
“Warhol had found the original photo in a
women’s magazine; it had won second prize
in a contest for the best snapshot taken by a
housewife”
Rainer Crone
“Warhol was very innocent of doing a
disservice to this photographer because this is
not what you might call a ‘remarkable
photograph.’ It was not an earthshaking
photograph, but Warhol make a remarkable
series of paintings out of it”
Ivan Karp
Teaching Ethics in Image Use
• To separate the legal from the
ethical
• Even if you can, should you?
• We want students to think
critically about their own
image use, and how they would
feel if the tables were turned.
• All images have subjects,
meaning, artistic choices
Richard Prince Case
Richard Prince, Canal Zone
Patrick Cariou, Yes Rasta
Richard Prince, Canal Zone
Patricia Caulfield
Andy Warhol
Shepard Fairey
Mannie Garcia
Morton Beebe, Cliff Diver at Acapulco
Robert Rauschenberg, Pull
Art Rogers, Puppies
Jeff Koons, String of Puppies
Christian Marclay, The Clock
Thank
You
Further Reading
Baselitz, Georg, Kirk Ambrose, Elizabeth Edwards, Ursula Anna Frohne, Cordula Grewe, Daniel
Heller-Roazen, Ian Mclean, Saloni Mathur, Lisa Pon, and Iain Boyd Whyte. “Notes from the
Field: Appropriation.” Art Bulletin 94, no. 2 (June 2012): 166–86.
Buskirk, Martha. “Commodification as Censor: Copyrights and Fair Use.” October 60 (April 1,
1992): 83–109. doi:10.2307/779036.
Buskirk, Martha. The Contingent Object of Contemporary Art. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press,
2003.
Gude, O. (2004). Postmodern Principles: In Search of a 21st Century Art Education. Art
Education, 57(1), 6–14.
King, Elaine A., and Gail Levin, eds. Ethics and the Visual Arts. New York: Allworth Press, 2006.
McClean, Daniel, ed. The Trials of Art. London: Ridinghouse, 2007.
McClean, Daniel, and Karsten Schubert, eds. Dear Images: Art, Copyright and Culture. London:
Ridinghouse, 2002.
Merryman, John Henry. Law, Ethics, and the Visual Arts. 4th ed. London ; New York: Kluwer Law
International, 2002.
Nelson, Robert S. “Appropriation.” In Critical Terms for Art History, edited by Robert S. Nelson
and Richard Shiff, 160–73. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.