Speaking

Katherine’s CV

Katherine de Vos Devine is an intellectual property attorney, legal scholar, and art historian working at the intersection of copyright law, feminist theory, and the cultural economy of art. She holds a J.D. and Ph.D. in Art History from Duke University, both earned simultaneously, both trained on the same question: who controls creative work, and how.

Her dissertation argued that transformative use doctrine had become a shield — letting artists like Jeff Koons and Richard Prince appropriate other people's work without payment or permission, treated as raw material rather than authorship. The Supreme Court adopted the same reasoning in 2023, ruling against the Warhol Foundation in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith.

She founded Implement Legal, a boutique IP and transactional law firm in Chapel Hill, NC, and teaches Arts & Entertainment Law at Queens University of Charlotte. Before law, she held executive and curatorial roles at arts organizations.

She writes Protect Your Magic on Substack and The Secret Weaponon LinkedIn.

TOPICS

Conference keynotes, panels, symposia, workshops, and CLE presentations.

Copyright and fair use

Appropriation art and IP law

Feminist theory and IP law

Artists’ estates and posthumous rights

Contracts and business formation for creatives

AI, land use, and recursive enclosure

RECENT TALKS

Yale School of Art · 2026
Ink on Paper: An Artists’ Contracts Workshop

UNC Charlotte Art History Symposium · 2025
Keynote: Lady Justice’s Male Gaze: Art History in Warhol v. Goldsmith

McColl Center, Charlotte · 2025
Beyond the Studio: Ink on Paper, A Practical Guide to Artists’ Contracts

College Art Association, New York · 2025
Navigating the Changing Terrain of Fair Use in the Digital World

College Art Association, Chicago · 2024
The Treachery of Institutions: Artists’ Estates and Fair Use