Katherine de Vos Devine writes about, teaches, and practices IP law at the intersection of art history, feminist analysis, and cultural economics.
IP attorney and art historian — both, simultaneously.
I’m an intellectual property attorney with a J.D. and Ph.D. in Art History. I co-founded Implement Legal to provide copyright, trademark, and transactional counsel to creative businesses that need a lawyer who understands the ecosystem, not just the law.
My dissertation examined appropriation art and fair use doctrine in the 1990s and 2000s — Sherrie Levine, Jeff Koons, and the generation of artists who built careers on images they didn't make. The argument I kept making: transformative use doctrine had become cover for powerful artists to strip-mine working creators — treating their work as raw material, not authorship. In 2023, Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith landed on the same conclusion. I'd been waiting eleven years for that decision.
Now tech companies run the identical argument to justify training AI on copyrighted work without permission or payment. The extraction logic doesn't change. It just finds a new vehicle.
Before law, I ran museums and arts organizations. That matters because I've sat on the other side of the table. I know what it's like when your gallery owner is also your friend. When your collaborator becomes your client. When the person across the negotiating table will be at the next ten openings. That's the ecosystem I work in, and my practice has to account for it.
Law
Copyright strategy and enforcement. Trademark prosecution and defense. Business acquisitions and sales for creative businesses. Licensing agreements, gallery representation, commission structures, estate planning. I serve galleries, production companies, agencies, and creative businesses navigating complex IP challenges.
Advocacy
I have shaped IP policy from inside the creative community — working with the College Art Association's Committee on Intellectual Property, and through public writing, conference presentations, and direct engagement with legislation affecting artists. Policy built before the court decision is more useful than commentary written after.
Teaching
I teach IP law at universities and cultural institutions, and I teach it from the argument rather than the rule. Students encounter fair use through Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith — not through the four-factor test in the abstract. They learn what a licensing agreement actually does by drafting one for a situation they recognize. The doctrine follows the problem; it doesn't precede it.
I've taught Arts & Entertainment Law and Art Law at Queens University of Charlotte, and delivered guest lectures at Yale School of Art, the University of Rochester, and Western North Carolina University. Professional workshops have taken me to the Center for Craft, Mountain Bizworks, Rhode Island School of Design, Mass MoCA, and arts organizations across North Carolina. At Duke, I taught across art history, markets, and law — as a doctoral student, and later as a practitioner returning to the institution.
I believe that legal education is most powerful when it reaches people who don't yet know they need it. That belief shapes how I teach, who I teach, and what I think universities owe their students.
Writing
I write two newsletters.
The Secret Weapon on LinkedIn is for creative business owners who need to understand IP strategy without a law degree. How fair use actually works. What trademark protection means for your brand. How to read a contract before you sign it.
Protect Your Magic on Substack connects IP law to commons scholarship and feminist analysis. The argument running through it: what looks like a series of isolated legal disputes is one recurring story — about who gets to extract value from shared creative resources, and who doesn't.