Richard Prince: Inspiration or Copying?

          I honestly had no idea that Mr. Prince’s photographs of magazine ads were allowed. He is just photographing other artists’ works from magazine ads and reprinting them to show in his own shows. At one point he even stated, “I never associated advertisements with having an author.” And it’s allowed! His borrowing is, as the article states, “protected by fair use exceptions” to the copyright law. I cannot help but compare this to the recent battle between Robin Thicke (and Pharrell) and Marvin Gaye’s family who claim that “Blurred Lines” is a rip off of Gaye’s song “Got to Give it Up.” After the judge compared the sheet music and audio of each song, it was found that “Blurred Lines” was a rip off and the artists had to pay Gaye’s family millions of dollars. Now how does that decision get made, yet Prince is literally allowed to take the exact photograph from another artist and reprint it and make money off of it. That is mind blowing to me, and I didn’t know that sort of thing was happening. “Blurred Lines” is at least a spin on Gaye’s song, with creative differences and some originality. Prince is literally using the same exact photograph. How can copyright laws for pieces of art differ so much? It probably even happens a lot more than I think, and it was only brought to my attention through the media lens because “Blurred Lines” was such a hit.

            In the music industry, some songs even include “samples” in them, like when Etta’s James’ song “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” was sampled in “Good Feeling” in 2011. In these cases, credit is not given to the original artist, but the voice of the original artist is present and every listener knows that the sample is from a previous piece of work. While Prince might be “sampling” it is not clear from a photograph that he is “sampling” from Krantz because in most ways, a photograph is a photograph is a photograph.

            The simple solution that is suggested in the article would be to give the original artist credit. Krantz wants his name to appear and get credit for the Marlboro prints that Prince is showing, and somehow that will make it all better. While I agree that credit should be given (Gaye’s family wants Gaye to have song writing credits, just like Tom Petty received after the court ruling of Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”), it still to me seems like that is not enough. But I’m being hypocritical because I believe that Gaye and Petty should not receive any credit because their music inspired these recent hits (sometimes unintentionally). However, the other side of me believes that simply putting Krantz’s name on a photograph does not repay the fact that Prince is using his exact image. But I suppose I’m feeling this way regarding the conflict of inspiration vs copying. Is Prince “inspired” by Krantz’s photograph and making his own art from it? I don’t really think so. But it’s legal.