Legal Information

Who owns street art (UK)

Who owns street art?
21 September 2015 By Tim Maxwell, Becky Shaw, Andrew Bruce for Law Society Gazette

In a judgment handed down on 11 September in The Creative Foundation v Dreamland Leisure Limited [2015] EWHC 2556 (Ch), the High Court held that a tenant was not entitled to remove a Banksy mural from the wall of its leasehold property and must deliver it up to the claimant.

As well as being one of the first cases to consider the ownership of street art, it also raises points of general importance in landlord and tenant law.

The mural in question, ‘Art Buff’ (pictured), appeared on the back of an amusement arcade in Folkestone in late September 2014…

San Francisco hitting up graffiti vandals with costly civil suits

San Francisco hitting up graffiti vandals with costly civil suits

By C.W. Nevius for the SF Chronicle
August 21, 2015 Updated: August 21, 2015 5:16pm

Everyone knows how difficult it is to stop the graffiti tagging epidemic in the city. First, it’s nearly impossible to catch anyone in the act. And if cops do, a criminal case in the courts often results in minor consequences, like a few hours of community service.

A walk down virtually any graffiti-tagged street in the city tells you criminal charges aren’t having much of an effect.

So, San Francisco is changing the game. We’re making it personal.

In an innovative and clever legal maneuver, the city attorney’s office is asking the courts to treat the city like any other property owner and allow it to sue for damages to pay for graffiti cleanup.…

Activists Arrested for Chalking Sidewalk

4 Activists Arrested for Chalking “Save the Animals”
by WILL POTTER on JULY 28, 2015
in TERRORISM COURT CASES (Green is the New Red)

(<<< An example of activist stencil chalking)

Four animal rights activists have been arrested for allegedly writing political slogans on the public street using sidewalk chalk.

The four were arrested in Beaverton, Oregon, and face charges of harassment, criminal mischief, and disorderly conduct.

The chalking was done as part of the growing “No New Animal Lab” campaign, which aims to stop the construction of a new underground animal experimentation facility at the University of Washington.

…

Shepard Fairey's Arrest Begs Question: Art or Vandalism?

How Shepard Fairey's arrest provides a new look at an old question: Is it art or is it vandalism?

By DEBORAH VANKIN AND DAVID NG (LA Times)

Shepard Fairey has never been one to play by the rules — and that's par for the course for someone in a street art community that exists on the cultural margins.

Or does it?

The L.A.-based street artist and graphic designer, best known for his 2008 "Hope" poster timed with Barack Obama's presidential campaign as well as the "Obey" image seen on posters and T-shirts worldwide, was arrested last week while passing through customs at Los Angeles International Airport. Authorities there noticed that Detroit police had issued a…

SF artist's Pride show squashed

SF artist's Pride show squashed by foundation, due to assault claims
By Chris Roberts @cbloggy (Examiner)

Street artist Jeremy Novy is no stranger to controversy.

Before he won commissions to put his signature stencils of koi fish on public and private property in The City, his art — pasted on sidewalks and buildings — sometimes broke the law.

Starting Monday, Novy — a rare LGBT street artist in the hetero-dominated world of taggers and stencilists — was supposed to have a monthlong gay culture-themed show in the Castro.

Called “…

Woman convicted for posting street art on Instagram

Here is an update from a 2013 post about the arrest:

Woman Found Guilty of Criminal Harassment for Instagramming Street Art
by Benjamin Sutton on May 18, 2015 for Hyperallergic

Jennifer Pawluck, the Montrealer who was arrested in 2013 for posting a photo of a piece of street art on Instagram, has been convicted of criminal harassment and, on Thursday, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and 18 months probation. Her community service must be completed within a year.

The 22-year-old college student has also been forbidden from posting any public messages on Facebook, Twitter…

How NOT to Document Your Illegal Work

S.F. cops say they caught prolific tagger 'Cryst’ admiring his own work

By Kurtis Alexander
Published 6:24 pm, Friday, March 13, 2015

An 18-year-old San Francisco man was arrested Thursday for allegedly painting his “Cryst” signature in many parts of the city.

One of San Francisco’s most prolific graffiti vandals was arrested Thursday while taking admiring photos of his work in Dolores Park, authorities said.

For months, police have been trying to track down the tagger, now alleged to be San Francisco resident xxxx, 18, who has painted his hallmark “Cryst” signature and other etchings from the Mission District to Treasure Island.

“This guy has tagged businesses, people’s homes, public property, Muni stuff, a lot of city property,” said police Capt. Dan Perea. “There are thousands and thousands of dollars worth of damage done by this one person … We’re very happy that we grabbed this guy.”

Police caught up with xxxx after someone phoned police…

The rise of the anti-facial recognition movement

The rise of the anti-facial recognition movement
By Joseph Cox on September 14th, 2014 for kernelmag.com

With Facebook automatically tagging your photos, Google Glass apps being able to pinpoint faces, and police using high-end technology to match digital and physical identities, big brother’s watchful eye is all around us.

While the technology behind facial recognition continues to develop as its presence increases, some artists are trying to give citizens their privacy back the best way they know how—by designing contraptions that help ordinary citizens avoid detection.

You might not know Leo Selvaggio, but there’s a chance you’ve seen him—or someone strikingly identical to him…

Gonna tag a BART station? Eyes may be watching.

Some BART riders may be reluctant to report crimes because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. That’s why on Thursday, officials from the transit agency unveiled BART Watch, a free app that lets users discreetly report crimes on trains.

“It’s an app that is sort of like texting police,” said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost.

The app lets users take a picture or send a text to BART police rather than call 911 or rush over to an intercom at the end of a train, something that BART officials said riders often won’t do out of fear for their safety.

The app is available for iOS and Android devices and works in English, Spanish and Chinese, Trost said.

Text alerts can be sent anonymously, and if users are out of cell phone range, their text will be stored and sent whenever service returns…

Boston PD Experimented With Facial Recognition Tech

“It's going to get better and better. As it does, it's not just the FBI, CIA, and government agencies, but also every shopping mall you go into, potentially sports arenas,” Crockford says. “It's going to look a lot like dystopian scenes in the mall in the film Minority Report.”

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/beantowns-big-brother

BEANTOWN'S BIG BROTHER: HOW BOSTON POLICE USED FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY TO SPY ON THOUSANDS OF MUSIC FESTIVAL ATTENDEES

By Luke O'Neil

Although we look back on it now through a mournful or angry lens, it's easy to forget just how downright disorienting the days and weeks following the Boston Marathon bombing in April of 2013 were. Adding to the surrealism of the drama for me was a night spent on lockdown in my…