Rogers v. Koons
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| Rogers v. Koons | ||||||||
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 United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit |
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| Argued October 3, 1991 Decided April 2, 1992 |
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| Holding | ||||||||
| An artist who reproduced a photograph as a three-dimensional sculpture for sale as high-priced art could not claim parody as a defense for copyright infringement, when the photograph itself was not the target of his parody. | ||||||||
| Circuit Court panel | ||||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||||
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| Laws applied | ||||||||
| Copyright Act of 1976 |
Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir. 1992), is a leading U.S. court case on copyright, dealing with the fair use defense for parody. The Court found that an artist copying a photo could not be protected when there was no clear need to imitate the photo for parody.
[edit] Background
Art Rogers is a professional photographer who took a black and white photo of a man and a woman with their arms full of puppies. The photograph was simply entitled "Puppies" and was used on greeting cards and other generic merchandise.
Jeff Koons, a famous artist, found the picture on a postcard and wanted to make a sculpture based on the picture for an art show on the theme of banality of everyday items. After removing the copyright label from the post card, he gave the picture to his assistants with instructions on how to model the sculpture. He asked that as much detail be copied as possible, though the puppies were to be made blue, their noses exaggerated, and flowers to be added to the hair of the man and woman.
The sculpture, entitled "String of Puppies," became a success, and Koons sold three of them for $367,000.
Upon discovering that his picture had been copied, Rogers sued Koons and the Sonnabend Gallery for copyright infringement. Koons admitted to having intentionally copied the image but attempted to claim fair use by parody.
[edit] Opinion of the Court
The Court found both "substantial similarity" and that there was access to the picture. The similarity was so close that the average lay person would recognize the copying. Thus the sculpture was found to infringe Rogers' copyright.
On the issue of fair use, the court rejected the parody argument, as Koons could have expressed the parody of the puppies without directly copying Rogers' "Puppies" photo. Koons' work was not commenting directly on the work itself, but rather on a general idea, so there was no need to copy.
