Proud Boys Lose Control of Their Name to a Black Church They Vandalized; The New York Times, February 3, 2025

 Alan Feuer, The New York Times; Proud Boys Lose Control of Their Name to a Black Church They Vandalized

"The Proud Boys no longer have control over their own name.

Under a ruling by a Washington judge on Monday, the infamous far-right group was stripped of control over the trademark “Proud Boys” and was barred from selling any merchandise with either its name or its symbols without the consent of a Black church in Washington that its members vandalized. In June 2023, the church won a $2.8 million default judgment against the Proud Boys after the organization’s former leader, Enrique Tarrio, and several of his subordinates attacked it in a night of violence after a pro-Trump rally in December 2020.

The ruling by the judge, Tanya M. Jones Bosier of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, effectively means that Proud Boys chapters across the country can no longer legally use their own name or the group’s traditional symbols without the permission of the church that was attacked, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The ruling also clears the way for the church to try to seize any money that the Proud Boys might make by selling merchandise like hats or T-shirts emblazoned with their name or with any of their familiar logos, including a black and yellow laurel wreath."

Man who defaced Tate Modern's Rothko canvas says he's added value; Guardian, 10/7/12

Ben Quinn, Guardian; Man who defaced Tate Modern's Rothko canvas says he's added value: "On Sunday night, a man who identified himself as Vladimir Umanets, and answering a phone number provided for an exhibition of "yellowism", said he was responsible for the incident at the Tate Modern and had done so in order to draw attention to what was going on in contemporary art. "I believe that if someone restores the [Rothko] piece and removes my signature the value of the piece would be lower but after a few years the value will go higher because of what I did," he said, comparing himself to Marcel Duchamp, the French artist who shocked the art establishment when he signed a urinal and put it on display in 1917."