James Earl Reid (September 9, 1942 – July 18, 2021) was an American sculptor, best known for the statue of Billie Holiday in Baltimore, Maryland, and for the sculpture Third World America that was at the center of the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid.
[2] In 1979, Reid began the design for the statue of Billie Holiday, eventually unveiled in 1985.
[2] In the 1980s, one of his sculptures, Third World America, became embroiled in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, a 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case about the U.S. copyright law's work made for hire doctrine.
The court held in that case that Reid was an independent contractor, not an employee, of the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV), who had commissioned the Third World America sculpture, but stopped short of awarding Reid sole ownership, instead remanding the case for further consideration of whether the sculpture was a work of joint authorship.
[4] Reid died from congestive heart failure on July 17, 2021, at Harbor Hospital in Baltimore, at the age of 78.