In 2000, photojournalist Patrick Cariou published “Yes, Rasta,” a book of portraits and other photographs taken over the course of six years living among Rastafarians in Jamaica. From 2007 to 2008, Appropriation artist Richard Prince, without permission from Cariou, incorporated forty-one of Cariou’s photographs into a series of paintings and collages titled Canal Zone. In response, Cariou brought a copyright suit against Prince and the Gagosian Gallery where Canal Zone was exhibited.

Of the thirty-one works comprising the series, twenty-eight contained Cariou’s photographs, though the amount of Prince’s usage of the “Yes, Rasta” photos varied from work to work. Prince’s exhibition of this series at several galleries netted over $18 million in profits and allegedly caused the cancellation of Cariou’s own plans to exhibit his photographs at another art gallery. After serving Prince and the Gagosian Gallery with a cease and desist demand in December of 2008 to no avail, Cariou sued for copyright infringement. In response, Prince claimed fair use.

In 2011, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held that Prince’s works did not constitute fair use of Cariou’s photographs and granted summary judgment in favor of Cariou, entering a permanent injunction and ordering Prince to deliver to Cariou all works incorporating the “Yes, Rasta” photographs for impoundment or destruction. Prince appealed, and in 2013, the Second Circuit reversed the district court’s order. The appellate court found that twenty-five of Prince’s works were transformative of the meaning or message of Cariou’s works, did not substitute for the market for Cariou’s works, and therefore constituted fair use as a matter of law, and remanded five works that presented closer questions of fact to the district court for further consideration. After the Supreme Court denied certiorari, the parties settled on undisclosed terms in 2014.

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