The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s use of a photograph of guitarist Eddie Van Halen playing his “Frankenstein” guitar in an exhibition of rock n’ roll instruments constitutes a “fair use” of the photo and is not an infringement of the photographer’s copyright, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has held.

The Met used the photo originally made by Lawrence Marano in 1982.  Marano sued in July 2020, but the case was dismissed by a federal District Court as a fair use of the photo.  The Court of Appeals has affirmed.

The National Rifle Association, sued last summer by the Attorney General of New York seeking to dissolve the organization and recover large sums from top officials for breach of fiduciary duty, has failed in an effort to use bankruptcy as a vehicle to move the corporation to Texas.   A Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Texas has ruled that the case was not filed in good faith.

A nonprofit created to promote and exhibit African Art has lost its charitable tax exemption and has seen the Internal Revenue Service revocation sustained on appeal by the Tax Court.  The Court agreed that the intended museum had not shown that it operated exclusively for charitable purposes.

A cleaning contractor for three charitable hospitals in Maryland is not an agent of the hospitals in the purchase of cleaning supplies and cannot benefit from the sales tax exemption available to hospitals, an appellate court in Maryland has ruled.  The Court has reversed a state Tax Court ruling that allowed the contractor to claim the exemption.

Artist Andy Warhol’s creation of a series of portraits of the singer Prince, based on a single copyrighted photograph of the singer, has infringed upon the photographer’s copyright protection, a controversial opinion of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has held.  The Court has reversed a District Court opinion and has held that the works did not qualify as a “fair use” of the original photograph.