Supreme Court copyright case: Did Warhol images of Prince cross the line?
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday weighed a major copyright clash over Andy Warhol’s use of a photo of the singer Prince, and appears divided on how far artists may go in freely using the work of others.
The case is being closely watched in the art and entertainment industries, which both rely on copyrights and also license copyrighted material for new works, such as films that are based on and adapted from novels.
During a lively back-and-forth argument, the justices sounded interested and engaged but divided on how to rule. At issue is whether and when an artist may use copyrighted material without paying a fee if his new work is “transformative” in its meaning and message.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts said Warhol’s work may qualify as new and transformative. His silkscreen portraits of Prince were new and quite different from the photos they were based on. His work was a “comment on modern society” and the impact of celebrity, he said.
—Los Angeles Times
Eric Schmitt promotes Kanye West after antisemitic comments, then deletes amid backlash
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt drew controversy late Tuesday night after he posted a tweet supporting the controversial rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and then deleted it.
“America needs a @kanyewest @KidRock tour,” Schmitt wrote on Twitter at 8:03 p.m. Tuesday. “Let’s go!”
Schmitt, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri, wrote the tweet three days after Ye had written an antisemitic Twitter post where he called for “death con 3” on Jewish people, a reference to DEFCON, a defense preparation system used by the military.
Ye’s tweet was removed from the site shortly after it was posted. A day before his tweet, Ye made antisemitic comments on Instagram, which led to his account on that platform being restricted.
—The Kansas City Star
NYC homeless shelter population hits all-time high amid cascading migrant crisis
NEW YORK — The city’s homeless shelter population has hit an all-time high as hundreds of Latin American migrants continue to pour into New York every week as part of a crisis that’s driving the local social safety net to the brink of collapse.
The previous record — 61,415 individuals in city shelters on Jan. 12, 2019 — was first cracked over the weekend, data from the Department of Homeless Services show. On Monday, the latest day for which data is available, the tally reached 62,174.
In addition to setting a new population record, the average length of stay has also surged to all-time highs, with single adults now spending an average of 509 days in shelters, according to city data. Families with kids are, on average, in a shelter even longer — 534 days — and adult families spend 855 days in shelters on average, the data shows.
The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless, which serve as court-appointed watchdogs over the city’s right-to-shelter law, blamed the swelling crisis on “bureaucratic bottlenecks” at social service agencies and a drastic slowdown in affordable housing production. Mayor Eric Adams, the groups said, has not done enough to address the matter.
—New York Daily News
UN General Assembly condemns Russian annexation of 4 Ukrainian regions
The United Nations General Assembly condemned Russia’s annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine in a symbolic vote that nonetheless exceeded Western expectations for how much support the measure would receive.
The General Assembly voted 143-5, with 35 nations including India and China abstaining, to approve the western-backed resolution, which opposed Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of the four regions. The vote was a strong indication of how isolated Russia has become over its invasion and decision to absorb the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhya.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the 143-5 vote denouncing the annexation of Ukrainian territory had a practical effect of showing that “Ukraine’s borders remain the same” in the eyes of the world.
She said the vote showed how the international community “soundly rejected the affront to territorial integrity, to national sovereignty, to peace and security.”
—Bloomberg News
