I remember it like it was yesterday. On September 7, 2018, I left my orthodontist’s office to learn the devastating news — Mac Miller had overdosed. A huge fan of Miller’s work, seventh grade Anjali cried her eyes out in the parking lot of Hall and Burnett Orthodontics.
Since the artist’s tragic death, ‘Mac Miller’ has released one posthumous album, three re – releases, and a mixtape is set to drop in the fall of 2023. Undoubtedly, the music is good, but the constant advertising and marketing after Miller’s death raises ethical dilemma after dilemma. The dead do not have standing in the court of law, but there are obvious ethical disparities within how record labels handle posthumous artists.
Miller is one of the better instances of posthumous marketing. Time and time again, talented visionaries have been exploited for their work, sometimes decades after their death. The moment an artist dies, their work is no longer a passionate reflection of their life, but instead a convoluted web of contracts and decisions. Unless an artist knowingly makes a posthumous project — such as Bowie’s Blackstar or Queen’s Made in Heaven — the art is a blatant invasion of privacy and often diminishes the artist’s legacy rather than reinforces it.
On April 5, 1994, lead singer of Nirvana Kurt Cobain died at arguably the peak of his fame. It would be an understatement to say that Cobain was a generational talent, as his rowdy and defiant style trailblazed the ongoing grunge scene in Seattle, Washington. Songs such as “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Heart – Shaped Box” cemented his legacy as a young, infamously troubled artist. Eight years after Cobain’s death, Riverhead Books issued 360,500 copies of his “Journals,” a collection of lists, lyrics, rants, stories, and letters penned by Cobain himself. What might seem to be a respectful posthumous release of one of Cobain’s most private and sensitive pieces instead reveals itself as a corporate cash grab. Flipping through the pages, one thing is clear — Cobain never wanted his journal to be published.
He writes, “Within the months between October 1991 through December 92, I have had four notebooks filled with two years worth of poetry and personal writing… The most violating thing I’ve felt this year is not the media exaggerations or the catty gossip, but the r*pe of my personal thoughts. Ripped out pages from my stays in hospitals and airplane rides, hotel stays etc. I feel compelled to say f*ck you, f*ck you to those of you who have absolutely no regard for me as a person. You have r*ped me harder than you’ll ever know.” The very moment Riverhead chose to publish the journals, any and all semblance of Cobain’s artistic integrity was completely ignored.
On May 18, 2023, the Supreme Court’s decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts vs. Goldsmith ruled that Warhol was not entitled to draw on a prominent photographer’s portrait of Prince for a series of images on the musician, thus limiting the scope of the fair – use defense to copyright infringement in the realm of visual art. The portrait of Prince was taken by Lynn Goldsmith, a successful rock photographer. While commissioning Warhol for a piece, Vanity Fair paid Goldsmith 400 dollars to license the portrait as an “artist reference,” agreeing to credit her. In a series of 16 images, Warhol altered the photograph in various ways, notably by cropping and coloring it to create what his foundation’s lawyers described as “a flat, impersonal, disembodied, mask-like appearance.” Litigation followed, much of it focusing on whether Warhol had transformed Goldsmith’s photograph, whether it “adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the first with new expression, meaning or message.” Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled 7 – 2 against the Andy Warhol Foundation, thus siding with photographer Lynn Goldsmith.
The supposed artist ‘in the wrong’ has been dead for the past 36 years.
What is meant to be a fight for artistic reparations is instead a decision meant to reduce the life and legacy of one of the greatest artists to walk the face of the earth. Why is it possible to sue a dead man, decades after the initial conflict?
Both partys’ decision to take part in the case do not have any motivation to secure artistic integrity or identification — the matter is instead about money. Stingy corporate big – heads and higher ups have little to no respect for late artist’s artwork and ideas; everything is another ploy to make money. Once an artist dies, do not tread on their vision. Let their art live.