...
While Koons' behavior was described as "willful and egregious," Rogers was not able to receive the monetary compensation he demanded. The reasoning was that Koons could keep the profit he made if he could prove that it derived from his own fame and position in the art world.
http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/image_rights.htm
- Collage
Tate Glossary defines collage as "the technique and the resulting work of art in which pieces of paper, photographs, fabric and other ephemera are arranged and stuck down to a supporting surface" (Tate). A collage work can be a painting, a drawing, or a three-dimensional construction. Numerous artists, from Picasso to Rauschenberg, did collage, but it's only lately that this practice has become contentious.
Jeff Koons, again, provides fitting example here. In the 2006 lawsuit Blanch v. Koons, Andrea Blanch accused Koons of stealing her work without authorization in his collage Niagara. In this collage work, four pairs of women's legs dangle over the Niagara Fall backdrop filled with ice cream and donuts. His intention was to "comment on the ways in which some of our most basic appetites-for food, play, and sex-are mediated by popular images" (FindLaw). The subject of this lawsuit was one of the legs Koons used, which was derived from Blanch's photograph, Silk Sandals by Gucci, produced for the August 2000 issue of Allure magazine. Koons, however, succeeded to demonstrate that his collage fell under fair use (Taylor). In his work he included only part of Blanch's photograph, changed its orientation, and used it in a completely different context to deliver a different message than Blanch had tried with her original. The court sided with Koons because his use of Blanch's photograph was "transformative," Blanch's original "banal rather than creative," the image of women's legs is of limited originality, and Blanch's photograph could not have captured the market occupied by "Niagara."
http://www.owe.com/legalities/images/legal30_blanch.jpg
III. - Other appropriation (or is it plagiarism?)
Damien Hirst is another appropriation artist who has become the richest living artist to date. But this doesn't mean he is free from the art theft claims. Charles Thomson complained, "Hirst is a plagiarist in a way that would be totally unacceptable in science or literature" (Alberge). Thompson's charges against Hirst doesn't seem to be untrue when one considers Hirst's saying, "Lucky for me, when I went to art school we were a generation where we didn't have any shame about stealing other people's ideas. You call it a tribute" (Alberge). Numerous cases of appropriation, or plagiarism in Thompson's words, can be found in his article, "The Art Hirst Stole," with images comparing the works of Hirst with those of other artists. The truth is that they do look strikingly similar. However, Hirst's works are worth much more than any of the allegedly stolen works and continue to be popular in the market. John LeKay, who made a crucified sheep before Hirst, has never sold anything above £3,500, while Hirst's set of three crucified sheep sold for £5.7m. Lori Precious's butterflies, from which Hirst seems to have taken inspiration, sold for £6,000, while Hirst's version sold for £4.7m (Alberge).
Comparison between the works of Precious and Hirst
http://www.stuckism.com/Hirst/StoleArt.html
Stuckist poster against Hirst
http://nikkokarki.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/flyer-4002.jpg
IV. Impact
The effect Hirst has on the art world is immense and often times deleterious. Lori Precious stopped producing butterfly works because Hirst has taken the idea as his own, and nobody would be interested in her works when the biggest name in the art world is producing the same thing. Unfair copying impairs demand for the original work and forces the artist who produced the original out of work. Precious says she gave up her butterfly image because she does not have the funds to pursue legal action (Alberge). In this case, even the copyright law cannot seem to protect Precious's rights. As "appropriation" of this kind by contemporary artists like Hirst continues to grow and fetch large sums of money in the market, one cannot be but concerned that the enthusiastic response of the market toward plagiarized works will only encourage more plagiarism at the expense of less known, less powerful artists.
...
Alberge, Dayla. "Damien Hirst faces eight new claims of plagiarism." The Guardian. 2 Sep. 2010. Web. 15 Jan. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/sep/02/damien-hirst-plagiarism-claims>.
"Blanch v. Koons." FindLaw. Web. 15 Jan 2012. <http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1374144.html>.
"Copyright Act of 1790." Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Act_of_1790#cite_note-0>.
The Copyright Law of 1976. 17 U.S.C. §106-7. 1976. Web. 15 Jan . 2012. <http://www.copyright.gov/history/pl94-553.pdf>.
"Glossary." Tate. Web. <http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/default.htm>
"Image Rights." Harvard Law School. Web. <http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/image_rights.htm>.
Party, William. "Appropriation Art and Copies." The Party Copyright Blog. 20 Oct. 2005. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2005/10/appropriation-art-and-copies.html>.
Paulson, Ronald. Hogarth: Vol.II, High Art and Low, 1732-1750.
...
Rudd, Benjamin W. "Notable Dates in American Copyright: 1783-1969." U.S. Copyright Office. Web. <http://www.copyright.gov/history/dates.pdf>.
Taylor, Kate. "In Twist, Jeff Koons Claims Rights to 'Balloon Dogs.'" The New York Times. 19 Jan. 2011. Web. 17 Jan. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/arts/design/20suit.html>.
Thompson, Charles. "The Art Damien Hirst Stole." Stuckism. 2010. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. <http://www.stuckism.com/Hirst/StoleArt.html>.