Southern District Court judge Richard Sullivan has thrown out photographer Janine "Jah Jah" Gordon's copyright infringement case against fellow photographer Ryan McGinley, who stood accused of pilfering both specific imagery and more general style from the plaintiff. In a humorously dismissive court statement, the judge concluded that "the dictates of good eyes and common sense lead inexorably to the conclusion that there is no substantial similarity between Plaintiff's works and the allegedly infringing compositions of McGinley."

As ARTINFO's earlier slide show of Gordon's evidence illustrated, the photographer was attempting to claim copyright for a variety of aesthetic decisions that clearly can't be claimed as the signature of any single artist. These included photographing topless women, people jumping against a backdrop of the sky, and interracial kissing.

Judge Sullivan clearly branded Gordon's claims as overblown: "Such a conception of copyright law has no basis in statute, case law, or common sense," he writes. "One might have hoped that [plaintiff's] attorneys, presumably familiar with the basic tenets of copyright and intellectual property law, would have recognized the futility of this action before embarking on a long, costly, and ultimately wasteful course of litigation in a court of law." Ouch.

Miriam Katzeff of Team Gallery, which represents McGinley, wrote to ARTINFO in an email, "From the beginning, we expected that the case would be dismissed. We arepleased with the Judge's statement." Hopefully, Gordon's failed suit will prove to be a deterrent for other artists looking to cash in on the recent fad for copyright infringement accusations. Meanwhile, Richard Prince is still marching right ahead with a show in the Hamptons riffing on appropriated photos of Jackson Pollock, despite being chastised by the law for unauthorized appropriation of works by photographer Patrick Cariou in his earlier "Canal Zone" series. C'est la vie!