[…] In a world where artists like Ai Weiwei and the members of Pussy Riot are imprisoned for politically dissident work, the threat of an intellectual-property lawsuit may seem like a minor censorship problem. Yet expansions to copyright and trademark protections over the past half-century have become another form of censorship. We live in a country where the use of paintings in a museum’s collection, Emily Dickinson’s poems, the phrase “freedom of expression,” or Donald Trump’s “You’re fired” hand gesture can be restricted by intellectual-property laws. For an artist, how to comment on this state of affairs without risking infringement remains an unsolved—perhaps unsolvable—problem.
http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/02/who-owns-this-image.html