Amalyah Keshet wrote: ?Just curious: If a work by Matisse had been purchased for MoMA from Matisse or his dealer *in France*, would the Pushman Doctrine still have applied? I suspect that French law would think otherwise. Did the Doctrine apply only to works purchased in the US??
That is an interesting question. Off the top of my head, I don?t know of any common law court cases that address this jurisdictional issue. My guess would be that NY courts would conclude that a sale that took place in France would likely be governed by French law. If MoMA had purchased a work in France for delivery to the US, however, the NY courts might be willing to claim jurisdiction ? and apply NY law ? even when French law would, as you note, be different. But this is primarily a theoretical issue. I don?t foresee many museums trying to assert copyright ownership ? especially when they might still be liable for infringement outside of the U.S. Peter
