Last week’s bombshell U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Andy Warhol “fair use” infringement case represents a human shot across the AI bow, even if AI wasn’t mentioned.
Warhol’s Prince series of works, based on a copyrighted photograph of the musician, was found to be infringing for a specific unlicensed use by magazine publisher Condé Nast. The court’s 7-2 decision, and in particular its rationale for narrowing immunity for a purported infringing work’s “transformative” nature, gives artists — particularly visual artists but potentially others as well — a powerful new argument in their battle against the coming generative AI storm that threatens their commercial livelihoods.