3 Count: Slumlord Millionaire

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1: Justices to Consider Whether Warhol Image is “Fair Use” of Photograph of Prince

First off today, Ronald Mann at SCOTUSblog reports that, tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is expected to hear arguments in the case of Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith, a case that is expected to be a rare moment of the high court ruling on an issue of fair use.

The case pits photographer Lynn Goldsmith against the estate of artist Andy Warhol. In 1981, Goldsmith licensed a photo that she took of the musician Prince to Vanity Fair magazine, with the intent that the magazine would have Warhol create a painting based on it. However, Warhol created over a dozen other paintings based on the image and those paintings resurfaces in 2016 following the musician’s death.

Goldsmith sued, saying that this use far exceeded the agreement that they made. However, the estate claims that the use was a fair use, and the district court agreed. However, the appeals court overturned that decision, prompting the estate to file with the Supreme Court, which is taking up the case this week. A decision is not expected for several months, though we may have an indication of the court’s thoughts following oral arguments.

2: Hollywood and Netflix Report Top Piracy Threats to US Govt

Next up today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that both the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) have submitted their recommendations to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) for the organization’s upcoming Notorious Markets report.

The Notorious Markets report is an annual report by the USTR that highlights international operators that are either enabling piracy or are not doing enough to prevent infringements. To that end, the MPAA called out a variety of international sites including domain registries, content delivery network services and more.

However, one interesting mention was Cloudflare. Though a U.S. company and not eligible for inclusion in the upcoming USTR report, the MPAA called out the company directly, noting that it provides services to many of the most notorious pirate websites.

3: Roanoke’s “Slumlord Millionaire” Files Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

Finally today, Lawrence Hammack at The Roanoke Times reports that Roland “Spanky” Macher has filed a lawsuit against Netflix alleging that Netflix claiming that an episode of the series Dirty Money is an infringement of a book he wrote.

According to Macher, while he was serving a 30-month sentence for failure to pay taxes and making false statements to a bankruptcy court, he began work on a book that would eventually become Slumlord Millionaire. He claims that, in he pitched the idea to Netflix in 2018 but that, despite interest, the talks never progressed.

However, Netflix recently released an episode of that with the name Slumlord Millionaire, which Macher says is based on his work both in title and content. This prompted his lawsuit, claiming that Netflix took his ideas, concepts and even marketing direction. Netflix did not comment on the lawsuit.

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