A legal dispute that will test the limits of fair use
I&#x27;d consider Warhol&#x27;s work to be essentially a remix. It&#x27;s clearly different. It has a very different impact. Even though there&#x27;s no denying where it came from, I doubt anyone wanting the photograph of Prince would be very happy if you gave them the Warhol version instead.<p>Legally, I expect Warhol to lose, but if he does it&#x27;ll be because the law is wrong. We absolutely should be allowed to remix one or more existing artistic works into new works, and artists shouldn&#x27;t be burdened with having to obtain permission to create them (although it&#x27;s still polite to ask, we shouldn&#x27;t expect art or artists to always be polite).<p>Hopefully the enforcement of copyright law, the chilling effects it has on artists, and the negative impact that it has on the richness and accessibility of our culture, will eventually encourage people to push for reformation of copyright law to bring it more in line with what it was originally intended to do.