Pair of jeans with a dark past / BAYC Sued! / RIP Cartoon Network / Andy Warhol: Copyright Infringer

Hello everybody. Welcome back to By Amara. This is my second time trying to do this because the first one was a clusterfuck.

So, welcome back to By Amara. This is a weekly news show where I discuss contemporary events in the art and history worlds. I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew.

The format for the show that we typically follow is the one used by, traditionally used by Western brides: something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. This week, though, we're going to have one something old, two something news, and one something borrowed-ish, again, as always. So, this week, we're discussing a pair of 140-year-old jeans with a really ugly history.

Are NFTs actually stocks? Well, the United States government might think so. Rest in peace Cartoon Network.

And Andy Warhol, copyright infringer. All that coming up on this episode of By Amara. Let's get to it.

So, I think a couple episodes ago, I started this segment: What's up with me? I think I might just nix that for now, just because it's mostly just me working and, just running my videography service. So, there really isn't a whole lot to tell.

I did have to return my library books, so I actually have to recheck those out that I talked about last week. A very lovely person in the comments on YouTube actually recommended a book to me. I think it's called The Lost Painting.

So, I am very excited to, to read that. It looks like it draws upon my love of like mystery paintings and attribution and things like that, like we discussed in the previous episode. So, thank you so much.

I believe your name was Lori. I double- have to double-check. But thank you so much for recommending that.

I am very excited to read it. If you have any sort of recommendations on books or whatever, let me know. I love books.

So, keep them coming. Let's just get to the show.

So, this week, we're going to start with our something old as we always do. Actually, that's a weird way to start this. But we're going to be discussing a pair of pants, jeans, actually, if you are not in the United States, so denim jeans.

And this isn't just any old pair of jeans. These actually capture a really crucial and terrible part of American history. So, on October 1st, a pair of Levis, Levi's jeans, the brand Levis, from the 1880s sold at auction, including the buyer's premium, for $87,400.

That is one of the priciest pairs of jeans that ever sold at auction that is publicly known. If you're curious, according to the Guinness World Records, the most expensive pair of vintage jeans that were ever sold were also a pair of Levis, but these are from 1893, and they sold in May 2018 for over $100,000. Back to this pair from the 1880s that just sold for $87,000.

They were found by a self-described denim archaeologist called, called, named Michael Harris. He apparently found them somewhere in an abandoned mine shaft somewhere in the American Southwest, but the exact location or even state wasn't published anywhere. And amazingly, these were almost entirely intact after 140 years just sitting in a mine shaft.

I will be including images of these jeans, so you can see them as I'm talking. But that is absolutely amazing. So, one must wonder, how is Mr.

Harris able to identify that these pants came from the 1880s? There are a couple unique styling features on these pants, that he was able to use to date them. So, specifically, it was a cloth patch along the belt line, a buckle-back adjuster along the like back seat of the pants, suspender buttons, 'cause this was before belts were a commonly used thing, and a single back pocket.

So, these were all very unique to this particular like decade of denim at Levis. So, although those features actually help date the denim to the 1880s, something even more horrific shows that this pair of pants may have come from the 1880s. On the interior is the phrase, "the only kind made by White labor." Now, let's get into this.

So, according to a Levis representative, the company used this slogan following the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Act, sorry, which barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States, during the heyday of anti-Chinese sentiment and discrimination. So, this 1882 Exclusion Act actually piggybacked on one that was already, created in 1875 that kept Chinese women from entering the United States.

So, this act was called the Page Act of 1875, and it prohibited Chinese women from entering the United States. This was the first time in United States history that the government forbid entry of an ethnic working group because it quote, "endangered the good order of certain localities." So, essentially, just when you boil it down, it was created out of a fear of a group of people, which that has historically happened through many different, cultures and civilizations.

This was created, though, out of a fear of quote, "cheap labor and immoral Chinese women." So, in response to all of this hateful discrimination, Levis also adopted an anti-Chinese labor policy, and the tagline that they included on their products and in their ads, which was, "this is made by only White labor." But in the 1890s, Levis actually scrapped this policy and dropped the tagline.

But, while the Chinese Exclusion Act expired in 1892, there were many, many, many other policies and acts that were just built upon all of this, throughout the early 1900s, that still focused on anti-Chinese sentiments and discrimination, all of these aimed at making it harder for Chinese immigrants to enter the United States.

So, all Chinese Exclusion Acts, all of this myriad of stuff that I was just talking about, they were all finally repealed in 1943. But, this was only done because China was a member of the Allied Nations during World War II. That is just a very, very, very brief and condensed look into why these jeans actually had that little label written in them.

So, these are a very amazing, crucial part of history. The fact that they were almost entirely intact is amazing. Having this written in the pocket, or like on the interior of the jeans, while it is a really terrible thing to see, it's very crucial to keep this history because otherwise you may not believe it if you don't see it.

And having the physical evidence of something having happened like at Auschwitz, I think that's very important. So, having this important piece of history saved, it's a physical representation of policy and what it means and, just discrimination toward people. Anyway, back to these jeans.

So, two men purchased this pair of jeans. Kyle Haupert and Zip Stevenson, went in together to purchase this pair of pants. Haupert put down 90% of the final payment, and Stevenson put down 10%.

So, Haupert is actually a vintage clothing dealer, and Stevenson is also a vintage store owner. He operates Denim Doctors in Los Angeles, and he has since 1994. It's not really known what these two men are attempting to do with this pair of pants, other than just acquire them, I guess.

I really hope that they can end up, you know, loaning it out to a museum or something, so then they can actually be seen on display, 'cause these are very important. They aren't just a pair of vintage jeans. They're a lot more than that.

I don't know, hopefully they can be on view in some capacity, but, I guess time will tell.

This week, again, we're going to be discussing NFTs. And if you hate it, I'm sorry. But this might actually be the best news that you hear if you hate NFTs.

This time, we're going to be discussing the legal trouble that Bored Ape Yacht Club is in. Specifically, the company, the Web3 company that owns Bored Ape Yacht Club, so Yuga Labs, they are in some deep shit seemingly. Yuga Labs is behind five of the eight top NFT collections, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Otherdeed, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and Meebits.

Yuga Labs is being investigated to figure out whether or not they violated federal law. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, I'll just be calling it the SEC from now on, is investigating if a few NFTs that were sold are similar to securities and whether they should follow the same rules that securities do.

So, securities are just something that has monetary value and can be traded. So, kind of think like a stock in a way. That would very much change the context of NFTs, and it gets really sticky really quickly.

But we're going to keep it pretty general for now, just 'cause I want to keep this nice and short and sweet. And the SEC doesn't fuck around. This is not their first investigation into the NFT world.

In February of 2022, they imposed a $50 million fine on the crypto exchange firm BlockFi for failing to register its sales. And in March, so the following month, they also dished out subpoenas to many other cryptocurrency exchanges and NFT creators. So, I think specifically the SEC is focusing primarily on a few NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club, but they're also investigating their currency that they made within the Bored Ape Yacht Club world, universe, called ApeCoin.

When it came out, I thought it sounded really sketchy, 'cause essentially what it is it was just a currency within their world that they were giving away to people, like holders of these NFTs for free. But it was like, okay, well, what value, what monetary value is this currency built upon that you're just giving, I think it was like 100 coins per NFT that they were giving out, which is insane, especially if people had like 20 of them.

It all felt a little weird when I was hearing that people were getting these for free. It just There are a lot of different issues with it, but we're going to keep this short, like I said. TL;DR, we'll see where this probe by the SEC goes into Yuga Labs, specifically Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is like one of their main projects besides CryptoPunks.

We'll see where this goes, 'cause if NFTs are turned into securities, this will be a really interesting sort of troubling outcome for the NFT world. This might be like literally the final nail in the coffin for NFTs, possibly. I have no idea.

So, yeah, we'll see where this goes. Bored Ape Yacht Club, they have gotten into a lot of deep shit recently, from the use of racist imagery to Nazi imagery to a variety of different things, so I wouldn't be too upset if they burned to the ground. But, I don't know.

I never feel like I should look at the camera when the music is playing, but I just felt like I could because why not? So, this is where we're at. Anyway, so our next something new.

So, NFTs were our first something new. This is our second something new this week. We're talking about Cartoon Network.

Are they dead? That was very clickbaity. So, Cartoon Network fans got quite a shock this past week when rumors started circulating that Cartoon Network was no more, that it was dead, gone, buried.

People were even using the #RIPCartoonNetwork on Twitter. Thankfully, though, that is not the case. It's just been a restructuring of the company.

So, let me just tell you a little bit more. While Cartoon Network is not leaving us at all, something equally terrible is happening. 82 staffers in its scripted, unscripted, and animation departments got laid off last week, so that really blows.

There are also 43 more vacant positions that are within Cartoon Network that are just going to go unfilled. So, these layoffs and vacant positions, though, are part of a $3 billion, with a B as in boy, $3 billion project that started in April with the merger of Warner Brothers and Discovery. So, they merged in April, and they are trying to cut costs in all possibilities, in all ways that they can.

Also in August, there were a lot of other jobs that were slashed and programs that were pulled from HBO and HBO Max. So, in addition to slashing 125 jobs in total for Cartoon Network, another interesting part of this merger is that Cartoon Network used to have its own level of autonomy, so it could make decisions for itself, in creative and operational matters.

Now, however, it will not be able to do that, so it's just getting folded into the rest of the major company, so that's something that's never happened before in the history of Cartoon Network. In response to everybody freaking out that Cartoon Network was gone, somebody posted to the Cartoon Network Twitter account saying, quote, "Y'all, we're not dead.

We're just turning 30. To our fans, we're not going anywhere. We have been and will always be your home for beloved, innovative, innovative," I've been listening to too much British TV, "innovative cartoons.

More to come soon," end quote. I feel like that tweet was sent as like, "Oh, my god, everybody's freaking out. What is going on?" So, yeah, so we'll see if Cartoon Network is actually like going to still exist.

That might have just been a, "Oh, my god, everybody's freaking out," kind of tweet, like, "We need to quell everybody's fears," but, I guess, we'll see if Cartoon Network is still around. It might be just in a very different capacity.

I am losing it today. Hey! Our final section for this week is something borrowed.

So, even in death, Andy Warhol is still shaking up the art world. This is going to be a very postmodernist sort of argument today, so just get ready. It's going to be interesting.

This has split the art world 50/50. It's been amazing and interesting to see that this is a very, divisive discussion that's going on. So, without further grandstanding, let me just tell you what the hell I'm even talking about.

So, basically, there's a case against Andy Warhol by photographer Lynn Goldsmith that he didn't get proper license rights, to reproduce her photograph of Prince. I guess I should just say there is a complicated backstory to this, so I'm going to try to fill in the blanks and let you kind of decide for yourself how you feel about this.

So, this dispute actually started in 2016 when Vanity Fair reused this painting that Warhol created in the 1980s. The Warhol Foundation preemptively sued Goldsmith after concerns were being raised over the use of her image. This case has meandered through many different courts from 2016 to now, 2022.

But it finally ended up in the Supreme Court, which began its hearings on October 12th. I have to be very truthful. Before this case, I had not heard of Lynn Goldsmith, just her name alone.

But I had seen so many of her photographs, just because she were She has taken photos of basically every major musician or celebrity in the past like 50, 60 years, I don't know, I have to do the math. But, she's taken a lot of really amazing and iconic photographs of tons and tons and tons of celebrities and musicians and things like that.

Okay, so here's the story behind her image of Prince. In 1981, the publication Newsweek commissioned a photo of Prince by Goldsmith. Newsweek ended up not using the photos, but Goldsmith retained the licensing for future use.

And I'm reading it like play-by-play because there are a lot of key details here. Three years later, in 1984, Vanity Fair commissioned an image of Prince for the cover of the magazine by Andy Warhol. Allegedly, they paid Goldsmith a license fee to use one of her images as the reference point with the understanding that it would only be used for that issue.

So, for the one painting for that issue. Goldsmith claims that she was unaware that Warhol created additional works outside of this arrangement. I think he created about 16 in total or something around there.

These additional artworks were copyrighted by Warhol and have since been sold and reproduced for hundreds of millions of dollars. And then, like I said, this came to a head in 2016 when Vanity Fair was publishing these paintings by Andy Warhol without attributing the original photograph to Goldsmith. So, like I said, this is a very complicated, layered case.

It all hinges on copyright, particularly fair use. So, in a court system, copyright gets very, very, very complex, and you can argue it kind of any which way, in a way, to an extent. So for this particular case, fair use is what's going to be probably used the most.

There are four factors that courts use to determine fair use. So, first, the purpose of use. Is it commercial, educational, whatever, or commercial and noncommercial.

Two, the nature of the copyrighted work. Three, how much of the original work was used for the new artwork or new work. And four, the effect of this on the market or the value of the original copyrighted work.

And primarily, this boils down to the commercial versus noncommercial and transformative. And no, I don't mean how your yoga crystal retreat was in Sedona. I mean how much it has been changed from the original.

So, as defined by the Supreme Court, this is how transformative is defined: It means if it, quote, "adds something new with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning, or message." That is vague, but also not vague. This is, it's it gets so tricky, which I think is why this has been such a contentious thing in the art world, because you can kind of, just for me, I could see it going either way, just personally.

Again, not a lawyer, not, super fluent in copyright, I know it enough to, have a good understanding of it, just going to art school, you learn about copyright, so I'm spitting. This is such a big issue. There are many different ways that this case can go, like this is very, very tricky, not just only because of like Warhol and Goldsmith, because of their levels of celebrity, I mean you have Andy Warhol, who's one of the most famous artists, arguably, of all time, just because he was great at marketing himself as like an object, a commodity, then you have Goldsmith, who, like I mentioned, I personally had not heard her name before, but that's just because I might be ignorant to different photographers, 'cause I'm not that familiar with photography personally in my own practice, but I have seen her images everywhere, like they are iconic images of musicians and celebrities, like I said.

So, it gets tricky because you have this like big-name artist, it's like a David and Goliath kind of thing, like you have big-name Warhol, big-name Warhol, Papa Warhol, and then you have Goldsmith, so I'm very curious to see how this goes. Also I was talking about how tricky it is, I got off on a tangent. So, for the levels of notoriety and celebrity, I would argue that this is really tricky, 'cause people will be very biased one way or the other, whether they like the celebrity of Warhol, or whether they dislike it.

Also because you have these publications involved, too, so I have genuinely no idea where this will go, but I'm very curious. So, this is not a unique instance in the art world, copyright is a huge, huge thing. Some artists actually play with this on purpose, some do it accidentally, like Shepard Fairey with his, Obama campaign poster where he used the photograph from Manny Garcia, I think without actually getting any permission from him, or maybe it was like a very particular type of, permission, but I don't think he actually did.

That has been a very widely used example in copyright. Barbara Kruger also has gotten into some issues with copyright for her artworks. But also Sherrie Levine was the first person that popped into my mind when we were when we when I was reading about all this, 'cause she would, re-photograph photographs and put her name on it.

When I first learned about her, I was like, "This is stupid, what the fuck is she doing?" And like blah, blah, blah, but now I'm kind of like, "Oh, I kind of like it," and especially because she would particularly, I think, mostly pick works by old white guys, I don't know, I just thought it was very interesting. She got into trouble with her Walker Evans image, I know.

I think she actually donated her photographs that she took to the Walker Evans Foundation, or whatever it is, but yeah, so Sherrie Levine is not a stranger to copyright issues. There have been many, many, many, many, many other artists that have been affected by copyright, so I genuinely don't have an opinion either way.

I do have to wonder if Warhol knew what he was doing. He was not a dummy, that's for sure. But he at that time, he had like a huge office of people that were handling various day-to-day sort of tasks like that and tracking licenses and stuff.

I wonder if he knew what that was. He probably did, honestly, 'cause he was making duplicates of things. I just I don't know, it's tricky, and I don't have all the facts either.

I don't know what the entire case lays out 'cause, again, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not directly involved in the case, but I'm very curious to see where this goes. This will be a really big case. This will be used in many art classes throughout the country and world, probably, for years to come.

So, yeah, we'll just see. I will keep you informed as the trial goes on. I don't know how long the trial's supposed to be or how many different stages there are, but hopefully we will get to an end point, and we will see where this goes, 'cause this is going to be very, very big.

All right, so that'll do it for this episode of By Amara. Be sure to like and subscribe if you like it. If not, I hope you have a good day as always, and thanks so much for watching.

I really appreciate it. I hope this was at least just something to, be interesting or, I don't know, inspire you a little bit. So, anyway, so I'm Amara Andrew, and never stop creating.

I'll see you next week.