The New York Times takes up the Richard Prince-Patrick Cariou copyright case today bending the story toward the broader implications the case might have on the mash-up culture of digitized content. But deeper in the story, we get Richard Prince’s own defense which is hardly the “everybody does it” shrug that story first suggests.

In depositions, Prince is straight-forward in his denial that his work is meant to comment in any way upon his source materials as the law allows. Perhaps it shouldn’t have to:

Joshua Schiller, Mr. Prince’s appeals lawyer from the firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, said the boundary is whether a new work of art results from the borrowing. And he argued that it was clear that Mr. Prince had made parts of Mr. Cariou’s pictures into distinctive Richard Prince works, not just copy them to pass them off as his own and deprive Mr. Cariou of his livelihood. Whether the work was successful and whether Mr. Prince’s intentions were interesting or even explainable can be left to debate. But the primary intention was to create a work of art, Mr. Schiller said, and that is the kind of creativity the law seeks to encourage.

“This is not piracy,” he said. “These are not handbags.”

In conjunction with a show at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris drawing from Richard Prince’s massive collection of pop culture artifacts and a show at Gagosian in Paris, Le Monde visits with the artist in his upstate redoubt of Rensselaerville, NY.

It’s the usual profile of Prince’s duality as man of the people and cultural elitist with scenes of the artist eating burgers at the post office/diner in town. But the best part is this comment by Prince’s friend Bob Rubin on Francois Pinault’s visits to middle America:

“Quand François Pinault vient à Rensselaerville, c’est en hélico”, confie Bob Rubin, citant un des collectionneurs de Prince.

Le Monde also gets a peek inside Prince’s studio and his private museum that contains works by Warhol, Larry Clark, Diane Arbus and, maybe not surprisingly, an Edward Hopper painting:

Autour des voitures, au mur ou au sol, des oeuvres signées Tatiana Trouvé, Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers,Walter Dahn, Martin Kippenberger… Il possède chez lui un tableau d’Edward Hopper.

Richard Prince,mémoire de la culture pop (Le Monde)

Chez lui, des espaces d’exposition comme dans un musée (Le Monde)

Adam Lindemann takes on the photographer Patrick Cariou who just won an important judgment against Richard Prince. In the process, he reveals that only 8 of the 28 paintings in the now infamous “Canal Zone” show were sold. One of those works was sold to Lindemann:

I always liked the series, and I’m a contrarian, so, in the pit of the crisis (summer 2009), I had bought a big one, and proudly hung it in my living room where many have shown curiosity and some experience serious disapprobation. Did I know about the lawsuit at that time and was I concerned? Yes, it was a perfect Richard Prince scenario: a work that was made under a potential copyright violation, the subject of a lawsuit, by a self-avowed “appropriation” artist.

Now some have mistakenly interpreted the judge’s decision to read that I need to give it back to the gallery, but possession is 9/10’s of the law, and there is a whole chapter in this story yet to been told.

A few days ago, I spoke to Patrick Carriou. He said that he was never offered any settlement money by Prince or his gallery before, during or after the show. He felt that that the artist had exhibited “arrogance, an overwhelming sense of power, and plain laziness.”

The Frenchman was clever to hold out in court, his damages will be substantial and they will be decided on May 6.

But, I wondered: What of his subject matter, the poor Jamaicans living up in the hills. Did they get a modeling fee? Did they give consent to the publication of their likeness for profit? What, if anything, were they paid, and shouldn’t they be entitled to some share of the suit proceeds? Well, Mr. Carriou agreed, he said “absolutely they are, and if I get anything, they will.”

My Artwork Formerly Known as Prince (Observer)

Last week, a judge ruled against Richard Prince’s argument of fair use when he incorporated photographs from Patrick Cariou’s book “Yes, Rasta” into his Canal Zone paintings:

Mr. Prince testified in the case that he had no interest in the original meaning of the photographs he used, Judge Batts wrote. In creating the “Canal Zone” works he mainly used the imagery as a way to make references to painters likePicasso and Willem de Kooning and to connect the works to a post-apocalyptic screenplay he was planning that featured a reggae band.

For that reason, and because Mr. Prince used the imagery for commercially available paintings, Judge Batts ruled that he and the Gagosian gallery violated Mr. Cariou’s copyrights. She ordered all unsold copies of the “Canal Zone” paintings and other related works to be impounded and ordered that the gallery inform anyone who already owned copies of the works that it would be a violation of copyright laws to display them. (She also ordered the parties to return to court in May to discuss possible damages.)

Judge Rules Against Artist Richard Prince in Copyright Case (Arts Beat/New York Times)