I suppose I'm enough of the stereotype philistine techbro that I don't think art critics would be in any better position to judge here than anyone else. Is there really a fact-of-the-matter about, say, whether the Warhol works are "actually" transformative? I think an art critic's opinion would be just as subjective and personal as a Supreme Court justice's, but maybe that's just my math and science prejudice talking.
In the ideal world, a subjective judgment like this wouldn't even be required in a legal case; but I'm not sure how we get two and maintain the right balance between copyrights and fair use in that ideal world...
I agree Congress could do a better job, on the other hand I don't have a perfect replacement copyright law at hand myself! Does anyone?
@ceoln @blakereid It should not matter if they were transformative. Warholś product is a derived work. The original work was provided under a restricted license which the Warhol Foundation ignored.
@ceoln @blakereid
Interesting comment in my feed:
Warhol took a picture, cropped it (to show just Prince's head/face), made it orange, and then exactly traced all of the lines in the photograph in pencil/marker. If a student in a graduate school art class dd the same thing, the student would likely be accused of plagiarism/unoriginal work. But since the name "Warhol" was attached to the work, suddenly it became a "genius reinvention" of the photographer's original photo.