On June 3, music photographer Dennis Morris filed a lawsuit in California’s federal court against appropriation artist Richard Prince and Gagosian Gallery for copyright infringement, Benjamin Sutton of Hyperallergic reports. The complaint accuses Prince and his gallery of creating and distributing derivative works without Morris’s knowledge or permission. Morris is seeking unspecified damages and profits made from Prince’s alleged appropriation of the photos of Sex Pistols’ bass player Sid Vicious as compensation for “diversion of trade, loss of income and profits, and a dilution of the value of [Morris’s] rights.” Supposedly, Prince used the photos of the musician in the 2011 exhibition “Covering Pollock,” at East Hampton’s Guild Hall, and promoted the works on Instagram.

Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento, a lawyer and expert on intellectual property and fair-use law, said, “This new lawsuit continues to raise the as-of-yet unanswered questions concerning contemporary art practices, globalization, and digital media.” He added, “Of notable interest, if not curiosity, is how the complaint alleges that the defendants engaged in ‘advertising activity.’ One could probably say that we may be nearing a time when art and commercial creations are viewed as one. How this will impact ‘artists’ in the traditional meaning of the word is still to be seen.”

This is the third copyright complaint to be filed against Prince. In the first lawsuit, photographer Patrick Cariou sued the artist for using his works in Prince’s “Canal Zone” series, 2008. In 2013, New York’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Prince and Gagosian. The judge ruled that the paintings were “transformative” and therefore were protected by the fair-use law. A second suit filed in 2015 by Los Angles–based photographer Donald Graham accused Prince of enlarging an Instagram screenshot of one of his works and exhibiting it in his “New Portraits” show at Gagosian. Prince filed a motion to dismiss the case, which is pending in Manhattan’s federal court.