Copyright Law and the Visual Arts:  Legislation, Litigation, and Community Practice

Allan Kohl

Copyright Law and the Visual Arts: Legislation, Litigation, and Community Practice

Allan T. Kohl Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Keywords: copyright, fair use, transformative use

Abstract

This historical survey focuses on developments in Anglo-American copyright law during the past three centuries, tracing how a system originally based exclusively on printed texts has gradually expanded its parameters to include works of art as well. Using visual examples as evidence, this overview reviews legislation (what the law actually says); litigation (how courts have interpreted the law); and the formulation of community practice standards that offer practitioners proactive guidance in navigating copyright’s “gray areas”. This study concludes by asking whether current American copyright law is capable of addressing increasingly complex questions of access and re-use in a rapidly evolving era of digital creation in our networked world.

Author Biography

Allan T. Kohl, Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Art historian Allan T. Kohl is Librarian for Visual Resources and Library Instruction at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, where he also serves as the College Archivist. He did his graduate study in Library/Information Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in art history at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He is a former President and Treasurer of the Visual Resources Association, and has served for many years on the VRA's Financial Advisory, Travel Awards, and Intellectual Property Rights Committees, the latter with a particular interest in copyright issues as these affect the educational use of images documenting works of art and visual culture.

Published

2026-01-05

Issue

Vol. 52 No. 2 (2025): Can I Use That Image? Copyright, Fair Use, and Rights Management

Section

Perspectives

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