(Reuters) - Times are changing for gays in American sports and National Basketball Association (NBA) player Jason Collins' decision to come out will encourage others in the top leagues to be open about their sexuality.

Two years ago, NBA great Kobe Bryant was fined $100,000 for using an anti-gay slur against a referee and on Monday the five-time NBA champion applauded Collins for coming out as the first gay man in a major North American professional sports league.

Bryant's reaction illustrates, at the very least, the shift in what is considered acceptable language and behavior in U.S. professional sports, the days when insulting others by using a reference to homosexuality are coming to a close.

Indeed Collins's very public coming out via the front cover of Sports Illustrated magazine was greeted with a stream of supportive comments from within professional sports in the United States with only the slightest hint of any dissent.

Mike Wallace, a wide receiver with the National Football League's Miami Dolphins, tweeted his incomprehension that any male could prefer to be in a relationship with a man rather than a woman but was soon on the back foot.

"All these beautiful women in the world and guys wanna mess with other guys, SMH (Shaking My Head)," Wallace tweeted before deleting the message and apologizing for any offense caused.

Wallace's reaction was not dissimilar to that of San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver who made headlines before this year's Super Bowl by saying he would not welcome a gay player into the team's locker room.

Culliver spent a pre-Super Bowl media session with scores of television cameras pointed in his face as he repeated his apology for an hour.

Whether it is a genuine change of attitude towards gays, reflected in several surveys of U.S. public attitudes, or a an understanding that homophobia is no longer acceptable, there is no doubt that professional sports are turning away from intolerance of gays.

In many ways, sports are simply catching up with so much of American society where homophobic comments are unacceptable in the workplace and no one would even think to ask if gays would be accepted in the office.

'MOVEMENT COMING'

The question now is whether Collins's move - and the widespread support for him - will lead to athletes from other leagues following suit.

"I feel a movement coming," Robbie Rogers, the former U.S. national team soccer player who came out in February, tweeted on Monday shortly after Collins's announcement.

Gay rights and anti-discrimination groups certainly believe that Collins is making things easier for those who will come.

"All of us have huge admiration for what Jason is doing," said Patrick Burke, co-founder of equal rights advocacy group You Can Play.

"Jason's courage in stepping forward with his personal story will provide athletes and fans with a new role model."

Campaigners hope that Collins's move will help break down any fear that non-open gays may still have.

"We hope his actions inspire confidence in others who might have been afraid to live their lives openly until now - both on and off the court," said NOH8 Campaign co-founders Adam Bouska and Jeff Parshley.

Collins, in his Sports Illustrated article on Monday, cited his frustration at not being able to participate openly in the debate about same-sex marriage and that is a reminder that the issue of homosexuality in the sports arena does not exist in a vacuum.

Sociologist Brian Powell at Indiana University Bloomington believes that what follows in sport now may follow a similar pattern to how the debate on marriage has unfolded.

"I don't think there will be a huge number of people coming out but there will be a probably a steady stream of people coming out, not unlike what happened last month when politicians came out in favor of same-sex marriage," he told Reuters.

"One day one person did and the next day another. I think the same will happen - it will be slower but there will be an increased number of players coming out."

The next generation of professional athletes in the United States are currently playing in college sports and Powell believes they will bring with them a fresh attitude.

"What I hear, with college athletes, is the real question for them is whether or not their team mates do their job. Competence and ability to play comes before anything else," he said.

"The more athletes publicly come out, the more other athletes are going to be comfortable with this, simply because they can then stop thinking of it in terms of the person's sexuality and focus on their performance."

(Reporting by Simon Evans in Miami; Editing by Frank Pingue)

(This story was refiled to correct Culliver's position in the seventh paragraph)

* According to the poll, 63 percent of Americans think that having North America free from importing oil from outside the continent is more important than reducing greenhouse gases. Thirty percent of respondents felt that reducing greenhouse gases was the priority of the two issues.

* In Canada, 55 percent selected freeing North America for imported oil as more important, while 38 percent chose addressing greenhouse gases.

* Seventy percent of Americans and 60 percent of Canadians are favorable to the idea of the Keystone pipeline, Nanos' poll revealed, with 74 and 68 percent respectively stating that they support or somewhat support proceeding with the project.

* Seventy-six percent of Americans and 66 percent of Canadians feel that a continental energy strategy should be pursued, and most of those polled from each country felt that there should be common environmental standards.

* When asked about the importance of reducing greenhouse gases separately from the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline, a majority of both Americans and Canadians felt that the issue was important.

* Eighty-eight percent of Americans feel that ensuring a stable energy supply is important, but that number drops to 60 percent in Canada.

* Eleven percent of Americans and 14 percent of Canadians expressed that reducing greenhouse gases is unimportant.

* The survey, which was conducted randomly on 1,007 Americans and 1,013 Canadians in late March and early April, is in sharp contrast to reports of thousands of Americansagainst the Keystone pipeline.

* According to the Houston Chronicle, 60,000 people have stated that they will risk arrest to fight the pipeline.

* Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agencyto the U.S. State Department, urging the department to do a more thorough analysis of the risks of oil spills and alternative pipeline routes, in addition to a study of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the pipeline.

* A State Department draft report of the $7 billion pipeline project in March indicated that it will not create environmental impacts, the Associated Press reported.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The governing board for Delgado Community College in New Orleans and Nunez Community College in Chalmette approved plans Wednesday that will result in layoffs at both schools and the cutting of 15 academic programs at Delgado.

The Louisiana Technical and Community College System, at its regular board meeting in Baton Rouge, signed off on plans to lay off 115 employees at Delgado, including 64 faculty members, and up to 15 people at Nunez.

Delgado's layoffs are effective June 3.

"Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with each employee impacted," said Delgado Chancellor Monty Sullivan, in a letter to faculty and staff. "We have taken every step to be as fair as possible ... in particular extending benefits to those employees as far out as possible."

Sullivan said the pending layoffs are the second to affect the college in the past eight months. In February, 46 administrative and staff positions were eliminated saving about $3 million, he said. But, the college still faced a budget deficit of about $8 million.

"We have made the difficult decision to use $8 million of the college's $10 million reserves to close the books for FY 2013," Sullivan wrote. "With this step, the college faces a structural deficit going into FY 2014 that requires immediate action."

The board approved the layoffs as well as continuing a freeze on non-essential travel, hiring and expenditures, reducing the athletics budget and moving to a four-day operational schedule for the summer to reduce energy costs.

Those moves will cut $5 million in costs annually, he said. "Combined, the February position eliminations and the proposed eliminations will save the college about $8 million annually," he said. "While the final FY 2014 budget is still being developed ... these steps will align the college's budget in FY 2014 and hopefully stabilize the budget going forward."

Sullivan said the board also approved eliminating 15 academic programs. Details on which programs were affected were not released. Delgado spokesman Tony Cook described the affected programs as "less productive programs," according to WVUE-TV (http://bit.ly/13zJCaw ).

"We cut programs that have low completion rates and that weren't leading to good-paying jobs for our students," said Quintin Taylor, a spokesman for LCTCS.

Teresa Smith, executive director of Institutional Advancement at Nunez, said no programs will be eliminated at Nunez. The contracts of two faculty members, however, end with the close of the spring semester, May 22, while the other staff positions end June 30, she said.

"This action is because of all of the budget cuts we've absorbed over the last six years," Smith said. "We held off workforce reduction for as long as we could by depleting carryover accounts but, unfortunately, it became necessary to look at a reduction in the workforce."

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Parks and Recreation" star Adam Scott is about to put on his swimsuit, as he's in early negotiations to dive into MGM's "Hot Tub Time Machine 2,"TheWrap has learned.

Director Steve Pink and original cast members Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry and Clark Duke are nearing deals to return for the sequel to the hit 2010 comedy, though John Cusack won't be time traveling with them this time.

Should a deal make, Scott would play an entirely new leading man, according to an individual familiar with the project.

A love letter to the teen comedies of the 1980s, the original "Hot Tub Time Machine" followed four men who use a magical hot tub to travel back in time to a fateful night from their teenage years in the '80s. The film was a modest hit for MGM, grossing $50 million in the U.S. and performing very well on home video.

Scott has been incredibly busy recently, with starring roles in the well-received Sundance comedy "A.C.O.D." and Ben Stiller's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," which Fox opens on Christmas Day. In addition to starring on NBC's "Parks and Recreation" and the popular web series "Burning Love," Scott and wife Naomi Scott are co-creators and executive producers of parody series "The Greatest Event in Television History." Scott will be joined in the sequel by Amy Poehler and Horatio Sanz, and it will air on Adult Swim on June 6.

Scott is repped by WME, Untitled Entertainment and attorney Wendy Heller.

The couple believes it's unlikely there ever will be a full answer explaining why a man gunned down 26 people inside the Newtown, Conn., school last year. But they feel more research into brain health and how a propensity for violence is manifested could help prevent future tragedies.

"When we started reaching out to scientists to talk about the underpinnings of violence and how this particular factor played a role in what happened to us, there is some, but no real, research going on this field," Hensel said.

On Monday, they announced a scientific advisory board for the Avielle Foundation, which was established with the goal of reducing violence. While some other victims' families have immersed themselves in the push for tighter gun restrictions, Avielle Richman's parents see the foundation named for their curly-haired daughter as their response to a tragedy that has launched advocacy work on many fronts, including school safety and mental illness.

The Dec. 14 massacre was carried out by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who killed 20 first-graders and six educators inside the school with a military-style semi-automatic rifle before committing suicide. The isolated, socially awkward Lanza played first-person shooter video games in a weapon-filled house where he lived with his mother, according to search warrants released last month, but authorities have not described a possible motive or released details of any medical condition that might shed light on his actions.

Avielle, a girl who loved horses, Harry Potter and the color red, had moved to Connecticut with her family about two years before the shooting. Her father kept a blog called "Avielle's Adventures," telling friends about a trip to a Thanksgiving Day parade, her 6th birthday at a horse stable, a road trip to Iowa.

Jeremy Richman is a researcher at the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. Hensel, his wife, is a medical writer with her own company. The foundation is a way for them to harness their training and skills and to channel their grief.

"I think the best way to help from a tragedy such as this is by action where your strengths lie," Hensel said. "This is our motivation now. We will never stop being parents to Avielle."

The Avielle foundation, funded through donations and grants, aims to raise $5 million this year and begin reviewing its first grant applications later this year.

One member of the foundation's advisory board, Terrie E. Moffitt, said science on the origins of violence has been neglected by federal agencies that provide research grants.

"Families of individuals with autism, ADHD, learning problems or schizophrenia demand that funding agencies support research into these disorders," said Moffitt, a neuroscience professor at Duke University and at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. "Families of violent individuals don't."

The other members of the board announced Monday are R. John Krystal, chair of the psychiatry department at the Yale University School of Medicine, and James Blair, chief of the unit on affective cognitive neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health.

The Avielle Foundation says it hopes to remove stigmas for people seeking mental health aid, develop the concept of a "brain health check-up," and identify behavioral and biochemical diagnostics for detection of people at risk of violent behaviors.

Marquis outpitched Ricky Nolasco, Yonder Alonso had a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning and San Diego Padres beat the Miami Marlins 1-0 on Wednesday to complete a three-game sweep.

Marquis (4-2) allowed five hits, walked one and struck out three in eight innings, his longest stint since last Aug. 11th when he had a 5-0 shutout at Pittsburgh.

"I felt pretty good," Marquis said. "I've been working real hard to get my mechanics right the last couple weeks of spring and the first probably four starts. ... It's easier now that I've figured a few things out. I have the life back on my ball, the north-south movement. (The) defense is doing a great job allowing me to pitch to contact and get some quick outs."

Padres manager Bud Black credited Marquis' sinker for the pitcher's effectiveness, especially noting the 14 outs he got on grounders.

"Today it was all about the sinker," Black said. "It was a basic Marquis mix of fastball, sliders and today with the heavy sinker down, down, down. They hit a lot of grounders and our infielders were on their toes and made some great defensive plays especially on the left side of the infield."

Nolasco (2-4) gave up one run and four hits, with one walk and a season-high nine strikeouts in seven innings.He had won his four previous decisions at San Diego, where he dropped to 4-2 with a 2.11 ERA in his career.

In the sixth, Wil Venable singled off Nolasco's leg with one out and advanced to second on Chase Headley's single to right. After Carlos Quentin drew a walk on a 3-2 pitch to load the bases, Venable scored on Alonso's fly to deep left field.

Headley, who also doubled in the first, extended his hitting streak to 13 games, and Venable also had two hits and a stolen base.

In the top of the seventh, the Marlins put runners on first and second on consecutive two-out singles by Justin Ruggiano and Greg Dobbs. However, Marquis struck out Derek Dietrich, who was making his major league debut, to end the inning.

Dietrich got his first career hit in his first major league at bat when he singled off Marquis leading off the third.Miguel Olivo followed with a double. However, Marquis got Nolasco to ground to third with the runners holding. After Juan Pierre coaxed a walk to load the bases, Marquis got Adeiny Hechavarria to hit a grounder back to the mound, which he turned into a 1-2-3 inning-ending double play.

"Any double play in that situation helps," Marquis said. "I was a little careful with Juan Pierre being that we've had a lot of at-bats and history against each other. I felt that the sinker that I had today against a young guy (Hechavarria) who hasn't seen me too much, I am able to make a pitch and fortunately it was hit at somebody, myself knock it down and finish it off."

"A starting pitcher gets stressed at least once, sometime twice during the course of an outing," Black said. "And Jason made some big pitches when he had to. The punchout on Dietrich (in the seventh) was a change. The first pitch was just a sinker that Dietrich swung through. And an aggressive young hitter swung at another fastball down below the zone."

Huston Street pitched the ninth to pick up his eighth save in eight chances.

The Padres have won four straight, 11 of their last 14 and nine of their last 10 at home after starting the season 5-15 overall. It was their first sweep of the Marlins at home since May 2005

The Marlins, who are last in the majors in runs scored with 99, scored just one run and had 17 hits in three games against the Padres. Wednesday was their sixth shutout of the season.

NOTES: Black confirmed that RHP Burch Smith will be called up from Double-A San Antonio and will make his major league debut on Saturday against the Rays in Tampa. ... Marlins pitcher Alex Sanabia, who left Tuesday night's game with a slight right groin pull, said he was going to play catch on Wednesday and did not think he would miss his next start. Marlins manager Mike Redmond said that Sanabia could be pushed back a day or two with the team having a day off on Thursday and another day off on Monday. ... Redmond said that INF Chris Valaika, who fractured his left wrist Tuesday night will likely be out from four to six weeks. Valaika was the 11th player put on the disabled list, tied with the Yankees for the most in the majors. ... OF Chris Coghlan was pressed into service at second Tuesday night when Valaika left the game in the eighth inning. It marked the first time he played in the infield at any level since 2009. ... RHP Edison Volquez (3-3, 5.50) will pitch for the Padres in Tampa Bay Friday night against RHP Alex Cobb (4-2, 2.79). ... The Marlins head to Los Angeles Friday when RHP Jose Fernandez (1-2, 3.48) will pitch against the Dodgers' RHP Matt Magill (0-0, 7.88).

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The World Jewish Congress urged Hungary on Tuesday to crack down on the far-right Jobbik party and called on governments in Europe to consider banning neo-Nazi parties threatening democracy and minority rights.

The WJC plenary assembly, held in the Hungarian capital rather than Jerusalem to highlight rising anti-Semitism in Hungary, passed a resolution saying Budapest must recognize that Jobbik poses "a fundamental threat to Hungary's democracy.

"Decisive action by all democratic forces against these contemporary expressions of extremism must now be taken," it said, adding a request that Prime Minister Viktor Orban sign an international declaration on combating anti-Semitism.

Jobbik, which openly vilifies Hungary's Roma minority and has accused Jews of buying up property to take over Hungary, has been a central issue at the three-day WJC assembly, which brought together Jewish leaders from about 100 countries.

Orban addressed the opening session of the assembly on Sunday evening, issuing a strong denunciation of anti-Semitism but avoiding any mention of Jobbik.

"He missed a golden opportunity," said WJC President Ronald Lauder, who while introducing Orban had specifically asked him to denounce the populist party.

Lauder later apologized, saying he had not been aware of comments made by Orban to the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth before the congress, in which the prime minister said Jobbik was a real danger to democracy.

"I want to put it on the record that the prime minister really did make a strong statement against Jobbik," Lauder said in his closing remarks to the congress.

Jobbik, which won 17 percent of the vote in the 2010 election and has 43 of the 368 seats in parliament, held an "anti-Zionist and anti-Bolshevik" rally in Budapest to protest against the WJC meeting being held in the Hungarian capital.

Orban's Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority in parliament, but has lost ground in opinion polls since it took power in 2010. It still has a strong opinion poll lead however and has a good chance of winning next year's election. Support for Jobbik meanwhile has hovered around 10 percent this year.

GREECE AND GERMANY

Robin Shepherd, author of a study for the WJC on neo-Nazi parties in Europe, told the assembly Fidesz was not anti-Semitic but it competed with Jobbik for votes among nationalists frustrated by the economy and resentful of foreign influence.

"If Orban goes too hard against Jobbik, he's worried he won't be able to scoop up Jobbik's voters," he said.

The assembly also debated the rise of far-right parties such as Golden Dawn in crisis-stricken Greece, which came from nowhere to win about seven percent in elections there last year.

Shepherd said support for Golden Dawn had risen in opinion polls since the election and the Athens government was so concerned about the country's economic crisis that it did not immediately respond to the challenge it presented.

David Saltiel, leader of the Greek Jewish community, agreed and told the assembly: "Our country was caught by surprise."

But Saltiel said the government, after lobbying by the WJC, had assured him it would soon pass a tough hate speech law that would outlaw incitement against people because of their race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation, and impose up to six years in prison on offenders.

Parliamentary deputies would not be excluded, he said, and parties that receive public funding would see it suspended if their leaders publicly deny the Holocaust - which Golden Dawn leaders have done in the past.

"We think with this law, (Golden Dawn) will be brought back to the small numbers it had before," he said.

The resolution also urged Germany and other countries with neo-Nazi parties to consider banning them.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided not to seek a ban on the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) because it is not clear whether such a ban would be constitutional.

But the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament that represents the 16 federal states, has begun its own effort to ban the party, he said.

(Reporting by Tom Heneghan; Additional reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Jon Hemming)

More than 100 rescue workers, firefighters, sniffer-dog squads and bomb and gas experts rushed to the gutted building in a subsidized housing complex in the city of Reims, east of Paris, officials said. Heaps of debris spilled out of the building onto a grassy esplanade below.

"The explosion of a residential building in Reims is a terrible drama," the office of French President Francois Hollande said in a statement, conveying his condolences to the victims' relatives.

The Interior Ministry also issued a statement saying two people died and 14 people were injured.

"We don't know the cause of the explosion. It was probably due to gas," Reims mayor Adeline Hazan said at the scene. "We know two people are dead we don't know their identities yet," she said, adding that the survivors were taken to hospital.

"These are not definite numbers, because we are looking for another two to five people," Hazan said. An official investigation was under way to determine the cause, she said. Authorities insisted that the two people known to have died were adults.

Witnesses described a powerful blast.

"The explosion was very strong, like a sonic boom from a fighter plane. We had been playing football on a field about 30 meters (100 feet) away, and ran to the scene," housing project resident Abdel Kader said. "The building had fallen like a house of cards ... 30 seconds after that we saw a man calling for help, he was on a slab. His legs were caught."

"Later, he died," Abdel Kader, a 27-year-old job seeker who declined to provide his family name, said.

Michel Bernard, the top government official in Reims, said the building dated to the 1960s. About 10 of the 40 or so apartments were affected on the end of the rectangular building, he said.

Late in the day, authorities deployed backhoes to help clear away the rubble.

The precariousness of some buildings has come to light internationally in recent days following the collapse Wednesday of an eight-story building in a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where at least 362 people have been confirmed to have died. Officials said three floors of the building, which had housed garment factories, had been built illegally.

___

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this story from Paris.

There is a palpable buzz of a possible test flight of on Monday (April 29) at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. The test is rumored to be a 20-second burn of SpaceShipTwo's novel hybrid rocket motor in flight.

SpaceShipTwo is designed to use the rocket motor to power private launches that will carry six passengers and two pilots to suborbital space and back. So the possible test flight would be a major milestone for the spacecraft and Virgin Galactic. []

Virgin Galactic's founder, the British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, hinted at a powered flight test on April 23 during an interview with the Las Vegas Sun newspaper at an event for his other company, Virgin Atlantic, which began Los Angeles to Las Vegas service last week.

"We're hoping to break the sound barrier. That's planned Monday," . "It will be a historic day."

Mum's the word, with fingers crossed

Despite Branson's tantalizing comments,and Mojave officials are tight-lipped on Monday's test, given the fact that technical or weather delays could affect their plans.

"Test flight schedules have to remain flexible to be responsive to weather and a host of other factors, so can't give you a specific date," said Virgin Galactic CEO and President George Whitesides. "But what is certain is that the team is getting close to first rocket-powered flight, which is an important milestone for the company and the program."

Whitesides told SPACE.com that whenever the first flight occurs, the primary goal "is smooth and safe demonstration of the vehicle system in terms of rocket ignition, shut off, and aerodynamic controls."

Officials in Mojave were also short on details for any SpaceShipTwo tests on Monday.

"While we can't comment on tenant test plans, we always strive to accommodate our friends in the press," Stuart Witt, CEO and general manager of the , told SPACE.com in response to a query.

"Flight Research Tests require three things: airspace allocation, vehicle in a ready state and acceptable weather," Witt said.

While a pilot hitting the start button on SpaceShipTwo's motor is not a hosted event for press and public, Witt added, "we try to accommodate the interest of the public. We never know times or dates it is the nature of flight test."

According to Mojave-based company Scaled Composites, which is building SpaceShipTwo and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane for Virgin Galactic, the piloted craft has undergone 25 glide flight tests since October 2010. Thewas a nitrous vent test and was labeled as powered flight number 1 "mission rehearsal."

Hybrid rocket motor 101

According to Virgin Galactic's website, SpaceShipTwo's hybrid motor stands apart from all-liquid and all-solid rocket engines.

"Here the fuel is in solid form and the oxidizer is a liquid. The passage of the oxidizer over the fuel is controlled by a valve which allows the motor to be throttled or shut down as required," the website explains.

Hybrid motors offer both simplicity and safety, Virgin Galactic officials added. According to the company description: "This is the type of motor that SpaceShipTwo will employ and that was used by SpaceShipOne. It means that the pilots will be able to shut down the SpaceShipTwo rocket motor at any time during its operation and glide safely back to the runway. The oxidizer is Nitrous Oxide and the fuel a rubber compound; both benign, stable as well as containing none of the toxins found in solid rocket motors."

Looking good for flight

SpaceShipTwo's hybrid motor supplier, the commercial spaceflight company Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), has performed over 300 hybrid rocket test firings. The company also developed the rocket engine for the first private spacecraft to reach space, SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004.

Furthermore, Sierra Nevada is developing a similar hybrid engine to power its reusable , a spacecraft that is vying to provide astronaut flights for NASA.

As for the prospects of an upcoming SpaceShipTwo hybrid motor flight, Mark Sirangelo Corporate Vice President, SNCs Space Systems, told SPACE.com: "We are looking good for the flight. Motor passed all its multiple qualification burns and tests with no issue."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's new book "Mission to Mars My Vision for Space Exploration" out in May from National Geographic. Follow us on,and. Original article on.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled that Prince had sufficiently transformed 25 of 30 pictures taken by photographer Patrick Cariou and published in a 2000 book that Prince's art could be considered a "fair use" of Cariou's work. The appeals court sent five pictures back to a lower court judge to decide whether they violated copyrights.

Central to the case were pictures Cariou took during six years he lived with Rastafarians in Jamaica. Prince altered and incorporated several of the photographs in a series of paintings and collages titled "Canal Zone," exhibited in 2007 and 2008.

The 2nd Circuit ruling largely overturned a decision by U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts that had found in Cariou's favor. Batts had ordered all infringing copies of the photographs, including the paintings and unsold copies of "Canal Zone," turned over to Cariou, who could decide to destroy them if he wished. The appeals court noted that Cariou had said he would not destroy them.

The appeals court, in a majority decision written by Judge Barrington Parker, said Batts was incorrect to conclude that Prince's art needed to comment on Cariou's work to be considered different enough and "fair use," a legal term that describes the point at which art based on a copyrighted work is transformed enough that copyrights are not violated.

The decision said 25 of Prince's artworks "manifest an entirely different aesthetic" from Cariou's photographs.

"Where Cariou's serene and deliberately composed portraits and landscape photographs depict the natural beauty of Rastafarians and their surrounding environs," the decision said, "Prince's crude and jarring works, on the other hand, are hectic and provocative."

The 2nd Circuit noted that Cariou, who lives in Paris, has not aggressively marketed his photographs and had earned just over $8,000 in royalties from a book of the pictures, while some of Prince's "Canal Zone" artworks have sold for $2 million or more.

The court also noted that the invitation list for a dinner that was hosted in conjunction with the opening of the "Canal Zone" show included wealthy and famous people, such as Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Jay-Z and Beyonce, artists Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel wife Gisele Bundchen, Vogue editor Anna Wintour and authors Jonathan Franzen and Candace Bushnell.

Prince sold eight artworks for $10.4 million at the gathering, the court said as it explained why his art would not damage the potential market for Cariou's photographs.

"Prince's audience is very different from Cariou's," the court said.

Attorney Dan Brooks, representing Cariou, said the ruling isn't the end but is "just one step in a long process."

He said the 2nd Circuit seemed to be saying "because one artist is not well known and hasn't been commercially successful, it's OK for another artist with impunity to just steal his stuff as long as he's famous and selling his art to rich people."

Brooks said the decision was at odds with "fair use" rulings by other federal appeals courts.

Attorney Josh Schiller, representing Prince, called the decision "great news" that was "important not just for Richard Prince but for all artists."

"It was not about money and wealth," Schiller said, adding that it protects the rights of those artists who specialize in transforming images into new works of art.

Judge J. Clifford Wallace wrote a separate decision that agreed in part and dissented in part with the majority opinion. In it, he said he believed all the paintings should have been returned to the lower court to decide if they infringed copyrights.