Copyright

Recreation of certain symbols done with ironic intent is often known in the art world as 'appropriation'. As one may guess, this approach often gets artists in trouble with copyright infringement laws. Such is the case in Koons vs Rogers.

In 1988, renowned artist Jeff Koons created the work "String of Puppies", a sculpture that was recreated, essentially, from a postcard by the photographer Art Rogers in 1980. The artist's argument was that the small changes in details -the bizarre blue color added to the puppies, the awkward flowers placed on the the subjects heads- were what made the piece original and thus not in violation of copyright law.

The purpose of this sculpture was to present to the audience the familiar imagery of our culture, as representative of mass culture; thus, his desire to appropriate the postcard was justified. So, though the imagery has not changed much, the concept is very new entirely, as the original photo had no intention to comment on society or culture. But Koons still lost the case.

In 2005, Koons was met with another lawsuit in Blanch v. Koons. He created a collage of women's legs that were appropriated from womens' magazines in the piece Niagra. Under these legs were pastries and other sugary treats on top of a Niagra Falls landscape. One of the photographers of who took the picture of a pair of the woman's legs sued Koons for copyright violation. This time, the court recognized Koons' work as 'fair use', meaning it had purpose and character of use, it used a fair amount of the photograph to be appropriated, and it did not affect the market potential of the original photograph.

The following video is a trailer for the movie RiP: A Remix Manifesto (full movie currently available on Hulu!). The movie examines so called "intellectual property", the legal term that prevents the creation of new imagery, or any other creative outlet, that in any way references old imagery.