Charitable Deductions Update

A NYT story today on the apparent "collision course" between House and Senate Democrats "over how to pay for a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system" notes that "the president, in his initial budget, had called for capping certain deductions, including those for charitable contributions, at the 28 percent income tax bracket, an idea initially rejected by a number of Democrats in Congress," but says that "some lawmakers who opposed Mr. Obama at that point said they were willing to consider a higher limit — at the 35 percent bracket — [when] the highest tax bracket reverts to 39 percent if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire."

Fairey Guilty Plea

The AP reports that Shepard Fairey "was sentenced to two years' probation Friday after pleading guilty to three vandalism charges. Prosecutors dropped 11 other charges. [Fairey] pleaded guilty in Boston Municipal Court to one charge of defacing property and two charges of wanton destruction of property under $250, all misdemeanors." He also "must pay $2,000 to a graffiti removal organization and cannot possess tagging materials — such as stickers or paste — in Boston except for authorized art installations. He also must tell officials when he plans to visit Suffolk County, where Boston is located."

"The museum violated no formal rules, but both we and the art world wish its leaders had exhibited more prudence, openness and collegiality"

The LA Times editorial board on the OCMA private sale.

"Artists hold applause for Obama"

Politico looks at the Obama administration's approach to the arts so far.

Judith Dobrzynski is quoted as saying: "Obama had a well-defined arts policy and a task force during the transition, so expectations in the arts community rose very high. They disappointed people by not having an arts czar. ... I think it' still up in the air about whether, a few months from now, people say they are doing right or not."

Salinger and Prince

A reader points out that Deborah Batts, the Judge who just blocked publication of a Catcher in the Rye sequel, is also the Judge in the Richard Prince infringement lawsuit. So is there anything in the Catcher opinion that gives us any insight into how Judge Batts is likely to rule in the Prince case?

The opinion walks through the four-factor fair-use analysis pretty methodically, relying fairly heavily on quotes from other fair use cases. On transformativeness (part of the analysis under "purpose and character of use"), it notes that "60 Years borrows quite extensively from Catcher ... such that ... the ratio of the borrowed to the novel elements is quite high, and its transformative character is diminished" (p. 22). As a result, "the determination of whether it constitutes fair use will depend heavily on the remaining factors" (pp. 22-23). Also, because 60 Years "is to be sold for profit, ... this [separate] prong of the first factor weighs against a finding of fair use" (p. 23).

On the second factor -- "the nature of the copyrighted work" -- "there is no question that [Catcher in the Rye] is a 'creative expression for public dissemination that falls within the core of the copyright's protective purposes.' Consequently, this factor weighs against a finding of fair use" (p. 24).

Regarding the third factor -- "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" -- "the ratio of the 'borrowed to the new elements' in 60 Years is unnecessarily high" (pp. 30-31). "Because Defendants have taken much more from Salinger's copyrighted works than is necessary to serve their alleged critical purpose, the third factor weighs heavily against a finding of fair use" (p. 32).

Finally, the fourth factor -- "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" -- "requires the courts to 'consider not only the extent of market harm caused by the particular actions of the alleged infringer, but also whether unrestricted and widespread conduct of the sort engaged in by the defendant ... would result in a substantially adverse impact on the potential market for the original'" (pp. 32-33, emphasis added). In response to the defendants' claim that there was "no evidence that 60 Years will undermine the market for Catcher or any authorized sequel," the opinion says that "it is quite likely that the publishing of 60 Years and similar widespread works could substantially harm the market for a Catcher sequel or other derivative works" (p. 34, emphasis added again). As a result, "the fourth factor weighs, albeit only slightly, against fair use" (p. 35).

Adding it all up, the Court finds that the "limited transformative character" of the work is not enough to overcome "the obvious commercial nature of the work, the likely injury to the potential market for derivative works ..., and especially the substantial and pervasive extent to which 60 Years borrows from Catcher" (p. 36).

All in all, one senses a very cautious approach, and not someone who is likely to embrace more ambitious theories of appropriation art not securely grounded in existing caselaw. But, barring settlement, we'll soon see.

Roxanna Brown Settlement

Seattle Times: "The federal government has agreed to pay $880,000 to settle a lawsuit filed over the death of Roxanna Brown, an Asian-antiquities expert who died last year while being held at [a] Federal Detention Center."

For background on Brown, see here.

More Opportunity Cost (A Continuing Series)

Over the weekend came news that the Albright-Knox would now be open only four days a week.

Other cost-cutting measures include (1) eliminating extended hours on Thursday evenings, (2) reducing programming on free Fridays, and (3) reducing the number of major exhibitions. Earlier this year the museum also raised the admission price from $10 to $12.

Of course, to the Deaccession Police, none of this matters. It doesn't make a difference if the museum is open four days a week, or three days a week, or 15 minutes on alternating Tuesdays. The purpose of a museum is to hold onto the works it happens to have -- every last one of them -- so that they are accessible to future generations (even if they are only accessible for those 15 minutes a week). Questions of access, engagement, and so on are not permitted to enter the discussion.

In fact, as this WBFO story reminds us, the museum does have "a separate $67 million endowment dedicated to purchasing new work." (I assume as a result of this.) And, of course, from the AAMD anti-deaccessionist perspective, buying every one of those unspecified future works is more important than any other museum purpose you care to name, including keeping the doors open for people to see the work.

"In the US, the practice of 'deaccessioning' is more prevalent and even major institutions buy and sell robustly"

Robustly.

But remember: "once an object falls under the aegis of a museum, it is held in the public trust, to be accessible to present and future generations."

How Best to Remove Objects from the Public Trust

Daniel Grant examines the question in the Wall Street Journal. On the one hand, those concerned with keeping artworks in the public trust should favor private sales to other museums. But the hysteria that surrounds deaccessioning tends to push people to auction:

"In most cases, museums prefer going to auction. Whatever criticism these institutions receive for selling objects only increases if they don't do it that way. Take, for example, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y., a museum devoted to contemporary art that sold 207 of its older artworks at Sotheby's, raising $67.2 million. There was some discussion at the board level of selling pieces directly to other museums or through art dealers, said Louis Grachos, the Albright-Knox's director, 'but in the end, it just seemed like going the auction route was the safest and wisest choice.' Certainly wise in this case, but why safest? 'We were under a microscope, and people were looking for any reason whatsoever to attack us,' he said. 'Going to public auction made all our actions transparent. No one could claim that we were pursuing back-room deals.'"

But Grant suggests that "museum directors fearful of public criticism might want to broaden their outlook. The Albright-Knox was probably right to take its disparate objects to auction, ... while artworks that ought to stay together ... call for a perhaps less lucrative 'friendly' sale to another institution. It made sense that when Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University sought to raise money by selling its painting 'The Gross Clinic' by Thomas Eakins, it gave first dibs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art .... The subject of the painting, Dr. Samuel Gross, was a renowned Philadelphia physician, and Eakins himself spent most of his life in that city. Raising money and doing well by the art aren't mutually exclusive goals."