Arts Law

We represent fashion and interior designers, photographers, architects, and artists of all stripes, in the various transactions and disputes typical to their work. Often that involves protecting and licensing intellectual property. But sometimes it just means that somebody refuses to pay the graphic artist or textile designer, or that one partner tries to cut out the other or take all the credit.

Too often, artists and designers have bad experiences with attorneys due to communication problems. Artists are from Mars. Lawyers are from Venus. Attorneys sometimes don’t understand the career, financial, and professional considerations that are most important to creative clients. And artists find it hard to communicate what their needs are to guy in a suit in a 35th-floor conference room.

We on the other hand move easily in the artist’s world, and have represented enough artists to speak the language fluently.

Often, we represent artists whose work was wrongly appropriated, such as a knocked-off fashion or furniture designer, or a photographer surprised to see his or her fine art being used to sell life insurance.

But we also deal with the opposite situation: where an artist wants to create something that borrows or takes inspiration from some prior copyrighted work. We believe public discourse is enriched when artists are allowed to comment on, and use, others’ work. This is allowed, in appropriate cases, under the copyright doctrine of “fair use.”