2021-4-6 EXPLAINING How the Fair Use Art Law Works

[0:00 - 0:16] Hello everybody, it's your boy, Cyraxx. So apparently, apparently, Schmecklecat and Marty
[0:16 - 0:25] seem to think that they know the fair use law when it comes to artwork.
[0:25 - 0:41] Which I find pretty funny. No, I really do. I find it funny that Schmecklecat and Marty
[0:41 - 0:47] think that they know the fair use laws in art better than someone like me who actually
[0:47 - 1:02] came up in the art world. So, we're going to do something about that right now. You
[1:02 - 1:13] see this video right here. This is the art law of fair use explained so that there is
[1:13 - 1:31] no confusion. So there is no getting confused or any of that. Yo Jeremy, what's up man.
[1:31 - 1:43] Now, I am going to sit back, be quiet, and let you guys view the video because apparently
[1:43 - 1:49] some people need to be taught about it soon.
[1:49 - 1:56] Transformation is the key. So what are you doing with the copyrighted content that you
[1:56 - 2:02] want to use? And are you creating new value, adding something new, different? This has
[2:02 - 2:09] been the heart of the fair use case law over the last, I'd say the heart of the fair use
[2:09 - 2:10] law.
[2:10 - 2:19] Now, let me touch on this real quick. This right here is exactly what I do. I literally
[2:19 - 2:30] take and I have shown this on several cases. I have shown this many times over that the
[2:30 - 2:41] artwork I do is legit. I literally take an image and I transform it entirely in its entirety
[2:41 - 2:51] to create something new, to create a brand new image. Let's continue.
[2:51 - 2:59] Of the fair use case law over the last, I'd say, I don't know, 20 years or so, and it
[2:59 - 3:06] is a big consideration. So is it new expression, new meaning, new message, or like I said,
[3:06 - 3:10] does it supplant the objects of the original? If you're doing the same thing that the original
[3:10 - 3:15] work was doing, you're going to be in trouble. But if you're doing something with a totally
[3:15 - 3:20] different purpose, you know, and it's a new tool, or it has meaning, you're going to
[3:20 - 3:24] be, you know, that's what we call transform.
[3:24 - 3:25] Exactly.
[3:25 - 3:30] Do you have a different purpose? Can you articulate it? And is it something within
[3:30 - 3:33] your work that when other people watch it, they're like, Oh, yeah, I get it. I get what
[3:33 - 3:41] you're doing different than new. Now, see, she explained that so well.
[3:41 - 3:55] Do you have a transformative purpose? Can you articulate it? And do you have a transformative
[3:55 - 4:03] person purpose? And can you articulate it? Yes. And yes, is it something within your
[4:03 - 4:07] work that when other people watch it, they're like, Oh, yeah, I get it. I get what you're
[4:07 - 4:16] doing. And yes, et cetera. Okay, so today, much examples, this was a case called Blanche
[4:16 - 4:23] versus tools. Andrea Blanche is a photographer. She took this photo of this pair of legs
[4:23 - 4:30] over here for an ad that appeared in the lore magazine. Jeff Koons is a very famous
[4:30 - 4:36] artist. He's also famous in the fair use world. He's been sued. I think this might have been
[4:36 - 4:42] the third time he was sued for copyright infringement and the first time he won. So
[4:42 - 4:49] he used a fragment of the allure photograph there in the black and white when you can
[4:49 - 4:55] see where the feet, the second on the left, have been inverted. But, you know, he took
[4:55 - 5:00] the original photographs and it, you know, did what he did. But there, the court held
[5:00 - 5:07] that this was a fair use because his painting was using the photograph to comment upon the
[5:07 - 5:13] culture and attitudes promoted and embodied in the allure magazine. And this was while
[5:13 - 5:21] he wasn't commenting on Andrea Blanche's specific photograph, he was commenting on the ubiquity
[5:21 - 5:27] of this kind of imagery and using that as an example of that imagery and the court said
[5:27 - 5:33] that using that original photo as fodder for his commentary, a bigger picture commentary
[5:33 - 5:44] on society was a fair use. Here's another fun one. So this was decided back in 1998
[5:44 - 5:50] and here Paramount Pictures was sued by Annie Leibowitz for creating this photograph on
[5:50 - 5:59] the right for their ad for the movie Naked Gun 33 and a Third movie. So, okay, so here
[5:59 - 6:04] we are. This is like commercial in the greatest sense of the word commercial because they
[6:04 - 6:12] have created an ad that is using a, you know, copyrighted content to, you know, sell a
[6:12 - 6:17] commercial product. It's to sell tickets to go see their movie. But the court held
[6:17 - 6:22] that this was a fair use. They said it was a parody. It's transformative. The ad was
[6:22 - 6:29] not merely different. It was different in a way that may be reasonably perceived, you
[6:29 - 6:33] know, as commenting on the original. So they're, you know, that's the thing. I'm not just
[6:33 - 6:39] using that because it's funny and cool. I'm actually using it to comment on what was
[6:39 - 6:45] going on in that photo or the ideas that that photo expressed. And then just so we
[6:45 - 6:52] don't think they're all for fair use or easy. This is a case called Monje versus Maya magazine.
[6:52 - 6:59] They published six photos of this famous pop stars wedding, which she was trying to
[6:59 - 7:04] keep secret. And her image was better than it seemed if she was like the single pop
[7:04 - 7:10] singer, you know, that they went to Vegas and they got married. They took like a total
[7:10 - 7:16] of six photos. So then one of their bodyguards found a disk drive that had these photos on
[7:16 - 7:20] it and tried to blackmail them to like get the back and they wouldn't pay whatever.
[7:20 - 7:27] So he sold them to this magazine and the magazine published them and then they were
[7:27 - 7:33] sued by the by the couple by the husband and wife. And so, you know, the arguments
[7:33 - 7:38] for fair use was like, no, this is news. These people are famous. They think that they
[7:38 - 7:43] can go around and say, I'm single. I'm not married. They are married. And we are not
[7:43 - 7:47] just going to tell you they're married. We're going to prove it with photographs as proof
[7:47 - 7:56] to tell a story that's exposing a lie by a public figure, you know, and here the court
[7:56 - 8:00] held that the use of the photos was not a fair use. They said that, you know, there
[8:00 - 8:05] wasn't a new work based on the photos, but rather that they use them for the same purpose
[8:05 - 8:09] that the plaintiffs created them in the first place, which was document the wedding. And
[8:09 - 8:14] so the court held that there was minimal transformation and it was undercut by the fact that this
[8:14 - 8:18] was commercial. So it's very clear that they're using these photos because they know it's
[8:18 - 8:22] going to sell their magazine. These examples demonstrate it's really not easy. It's very
[8:22 - 8:27] fact specific. So what do you do if you want to actually rely on it? You know, one of
[8:27 - 8:32] the most helpful and things that my clients rely on and that I tell people to rely on
[8:32 - 8:37] all the time are these best practices guides that are put out by the Center for Social
[8:37 - 8:44] Media at American University. So they, what these guides do is they identify common classes
[8:44 - 8:50] of situations to which fair use is likely to apply. And they're written for users,
[8:50 - 8:57] not for lawyers. And so they can be really useful for kind of understanding general categories
[8:57 - 9:10] of boundaries of what is or what is it safely fair use.
[9:10 - 9:25] Need I say anything else? Marty or Schmeichelcat? So, you know, you guys can take that bullshit.
[9:25 - 9:32] I would up your ass Marty and go the fuck somewhere else. Cause I'd say you just got
[9:32 - 9:44] proven wrong and less than give or take five, 10 minutes. Yeah, I'd say you got proven
[9:44 - 9:58] wrong in about, in a total of say, I don't know what I came up with. You got proven wrong
[9:58 - 9:59] in about seven minutes flat. I think that's a new record. I think about six minutes for
[9:59 - 10:13] proven you wrong. So Marty, my work is original. I am transformative with all my pieces. Every
[10:13 - 10:25] piece I have done is transformative. Go to my Instagram. Go to Cyrax graphic on Instagram.
[10:25 - 10:36] Look at my Instagram. Every image is transformative in some way, shape or form. Seriously, go
[10:36 - 10:56] check it out for yourself. For real. So Marty, ding, ding, ding, ding, you lose again. Oh,
[10:56 - 11:05] like always. So now that I've proven my point, I think I'm going to sit down, chill out,
[11:05 - 11:14] relax and probably work on some car photography on horizon four, trying to get some stuff
[11:14 - 11:28] going with that. Cause I do need to get some more photos. So yeah. With that being said,
[11:28 - 11:35] I hope you guys have a good night and I hope that all you upcoming artists that, you know,
[11:35 - 11:40] wanted to learn about fair use, you guys now, you know, have learned a little bit about
[11:40 - 11:47] it and how it works and how I utilize it and how I'm able to do what I do. Cause like
[11:47 - 11:56] I said, what I'm doing is not a crime. It is transformative and the biggest sense.
[11:56 - 12:01] Like literally, if you take a look at my artwork, it is transformative in every single way,
[12:01 - 12:13] shape or form that you can ever imagine. Like literally to the max transformative. So yeah.
[12:13 - 12:19] And I developed a new art style from it that people genuinely love. That's why I get asked
[12:19 - 12:27] to do commissions for my art style. I've gotten asked in the last two days to, to
[12:27 - 12:32] like literally like 10 different people to do art commissions for them in the style
[12:32 - 12:39] that I do because they love my dark, creepy art style. They love it. I created a new
[12:39 - 12:46] art style that people genuinely love. That's why I get asked to do commissions because
[12:46 - 12:52] I'm good with what I do. And besides, I kind of like doing that art style anyway. It's
[12:52 - 13:03] dark, it's creepy and it gives new life to the image. So there's that. So Marty, why
[13:03 - 13:16] don't you learn your facts before you judge. Learn your facts boy. Learn your facts before
[13:16 - 13:24] you make assumptions because you don't know as much as you think you do. With that being
[13:24 - 13:31] said guys, if you guys have me over on discord, I will catch you guys on discord. I fucking
[13:31 - 13:42] love you guys and Marty, fuck you. I'm out y'all fucking love you guys. Peace. Be safe,
[13:42 - 13:48] be humble and remember don't let anybody throw any shit at you because you guys are awesome.
[13:48 - 13:57] You guys are amazing. You guys are wonderful and you guys are fucking family. Peace.