"Who owns public art illegally placed onto private buildings? That’s a question that came up recently after a famous Banksy work in London was ripped out of the side of a building, shipped across the Atlantic, and put up for auction with an estimated final price of over half a million dollars." ...
On the surface, it sounds easy; the owner owns the wall. But who owns the art? Does the artist retain copyright? Does he forfeit the copyright for this one copy, but retain it for all future copies? If Picasso made a sketch on a Starbucks napkin, could Starbucks claim it is theirs, or could Picasso sell it as his own? If a photograph of a piece of street art wins an award, should the photographer or the street artist receive the benefit? Would anyone be interested in paying $500k for this wall without the art, or is it the art people are paying for? I guess it could be likened to Ansel Adams grabbing a roll of my film without permission, and then me try to claim ownership of any images on that roll of film. What if I'm in a camera shop taking some test shots with a new 7D I'm thinking about buying, and I'm lucky enough to get some exclusive shots of Sylvester Stallone as he walks by in drag; are those my photos, or do they belong to the camera store (since it is their memory card)? Interesting.
In many cases the ART was illegally placed to start with. So could the owner of the wall sue the artist for destruction of property? You can look at it many ways....
I actually thought people were past the Banksy thing now, guess not. But then I did live in Bristol and walked past his work everyday, if only I had known back then ;)
In the same way that if I give someone a print of my photograph, I don't have any rights to stop them from selling it (although I do have rights to stop them reproducing it), the owner of the wall has been given a Banksy (in so far as we can assume Banksy wasn't coerced into painting it on that wall, or was promised payment that subsequently wasn't delivered), and so the wall's owner now also owns the artwork.
They don't own the copyright for that artwork, so they can't, for example, take a photo of it and sell prints of it, but they can sell the original piece of artwork.
The fact that, when Banksy gave the wall's owner the artwork, he also presumably committed an act of property damage, is an entirely unrelated issue. (And presumably the wall owner could press charges, were they able to find him!)
The first-sale doctrine is one of the key 'allowances' of copyright law (along with things like fair use, which allow sites like Wikipedia to work).
I have heard it said that "possession is 9/10ths of the law". If you're an artist and you paint or install your picture on someone's private wall (without their permission or compensation to you) that's a risk you take- you've basically given your work away. You don't own the wall- the owner does. So, if you don't want someone to make money off your work if they haven't initially paid for it, put it on your own wall.
Do we know that it is being auctioned by the owner of the wall?
A quick research of the news reports shows that it is not the owner of the wall that is selling the picture, but a 'well known collector'. Local people claim that it was 'a gift to the community' but admittedly painted without the knowledge or consent of the wall owner. I think it is more complex that at first thought.
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In the same way that if I give someone a print of my photograph, I don't have any rights to stop them from selling it (although I do have rights to stop them reproducing it), the owner of the wall has been given a Banksy (in so far as we can assume Banksy wasn't coerced into painting it on that wall, or was promised payment that subsequently wasn't delivered), and so the wall's owner now also owns the artwork.
They don't own the copyright for that artwork, so they can't, for example, take a photo of it and sell prints of it, but they can sell the original piece of artwork.
The fact that, when Banksy gave the wall's owner the artwork, he also presumably committed an act of property damage, is an entirely unrelated issue. (And presumably the wall owner could press charges, were they able to find him!)
The first-sale doctrine is one of the key 'allowances' of copyright law (along with things like fair use, which allow sites like Wikipedia to work).
A quick research of the news reports shows that it is not the owner of the wall that is selling the picture, but a 'well known collector'. Local people claim that it was 'a gift to the community' but admittedly painted without the knowledge or consent of the wall owner. I think it is more complex that at first thought.