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In 1981, the rock photographer Lynn Goldsmith did a photoshoot with an up-and-coming singer songwriter called Prince. A few years later, he became a superstar, and she licenced one of her photos to Vanity Fair to be used as a reference picture for an illustration.

That portrait, known as 鈥淧urple Prince鈥� was painted by Andy Warhol.

But what Lynn Goldsmith didn鈥檛 know, and nor did anyone else, was that Warhol made multiple portraits from her photograph. After Prince died in 2016, Vanity Fair licenced a different one of these portraits from the Andy Warhol Foundation for a tribute in the magazine. That picture was called the 鈥淥range Prince鈥�.

When Lynn Goldsmith saw this new portrait, she asserted her copyright 鈥� and so did the Andy Warhol Foundation. The US Supreme Court, is now trying to decide whether the photo was 鈥渢ransformed鈥� when Warhol painted it, and what constitutes 鈥渇air use鈥�. It鈥檚 a case with vast implications for artists, photographers, galleries and the art business.

So this week on the Inquiry, we鈥檙e asking: why are Warhol鈥檚 Prince works before the US Supreme Court?

Presenter: Charmaine Cozier
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Tara McDermott
Researcher: Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty
Broadcast co-ordinators : Sophie Hill and Siobhan Reed

(Photo: Prince Rogers Nelson Credit: 漏锔� 1981 Lynn Goldsmith)