Judge awards graffiti artists $6.7M in suit against building owner who whitewashed their art; ABA Journal, February 14, 2018

Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal; Judge awards graffiti artists $6.7M in suit against building owner who whitewashed their art

"A federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, awarded statutory damages of $6.7 million to 21 graffiti artists in a suit that contended a building owner violated federal law when he painted over their artwork.

U.S. District Judge Frederic Block ruled Monday that 45 works of graffiti art on the 5Pointz warehouses in the borough of Queens were protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act because of their “recognized stature,” report the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Dean Nicyper, a Withers Bergman partner who specializes in art law, told the New York Times that the decision is the first to find that graffiti and graffiti artists were protected by VARA.

The Visual Artists Rights Act amends copyright law to give artists the right to attribution and integrity of their visual work."

Cady Noland Sues Three Galleries for Copyright Infringement Over Disavowed Log Cabin Sculpture; artnetnews, July 21, 2017

Julia Halperin & Eileen Kinsella, artnetnews; Cady Noland Sues Three Galleries for Copyright Infringement Over Disavowed Log Cabin Sculpture

"How much can you conserve an artwork before it becomes something entirely different?

This question is at the heart of a lawsuit filed in New York earlier this week by the artist Cady Noland. She claims that a collector and a group of dealers infringed her copyright by hiring a conservator to repair her sculpture Log Cabin (1990) without consulting her. The repair, Noland says, went way beyond the bounds of normal conservation."

'Charging Bull' sculptor calls for New York to remove 'Fearless Girl' statue; Guardian, April 12, 2017

Jamiles Lartey, Guardian; 

'Charging Bull' sculptor calls for New York to remove 'Fearless Girl' statue

"Siegel and Di Modica have asked the city of New York to remove the statue, which became something of a phenomenon when it was first installed earlier this year, and tied by many to the global Women’s March movement. They say the city should place the “Fearless Girl” somewhere else where it no longer relies on the “Charging Bull”. “The work is incomplete without Mr Di Modica’s Charging Bull, and as such it constitutes a derivative work,” Seigel said, noting that the statue of the girl, hands on her hips, only becomes “fearless” because of the much larger, aggressive bull.

Siegel pointed to a 1990 copyright statute that grants visual artists the right “to prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation or other modification of that work which would be prejudicial to [the artist’s] reputation”.

In addition to the removal of the statue, Di Modica was seeking unspecified damages from the city of New York. Siegel said, however, that his client had not filed a lawsuit yet and is hoping the city – specifically its mayor, Bill de Blasio – will come to the table with the artist in good faith. De Blasio recently extended “Fearless Girl’s” permit through March 2018 and has called it a symbol of “standing up to fear, standing up to power” and doing what’s right. Seigel said the “inescapable implication” was that Di Modica’s bull became “a force against doing what’s right”."

Artist Files Suit Over Missing Empire State Building Paintings; New York Times, 1/31/14

Randy Kennedy, New York Times; Artist Files Suit Over Missing Empire State Building Paintings:

"The paintings, by the New York artist Kysa Johnson, were commissioned by the building’s owners and installed in 2000. But last year, art collectors visiting the building to see the pieces could not find them and told Ms. Johnson, who asked the building’s current owner, the Empire State Realty Trust, what had happened to them. According to a lawsuit the artist filed this week in federal court in New York, the trust told her that the paintings “could not be located, were likely destroyed and therefore could not be returned to” her.

The suit — which says that Ms. Johnson retained ownership of the paintings under her commissioning contract — is unusual because it is not simply a property-loss case but is being pursued under the Visual Artists Rights Act, a copyright protection put into place in 1991 that safeguards the moral rights of artists against distortion, mutilation or destruction of their work."