“ILLEGAL” ARTISTS FEAR CORPORATE LITIGATION

Artists have always borrowed from popular culture, Ron Harris writes in the Washington Post. But lately, pop-culture appropriation is increasingly drawing legal threats, particularly from corporations. Carrie McLaren, the curator of “Illegal Art”—an exhibit of works that incorporate trademarked imagery, currently on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—said the threat of lawsuits has hovered over some of the show’s artists, who fear that a growing climate of stone-fisted copyright ownership is stifling creativity.