Muralist Dan Fontes “is seeking $400,000 in damages from the current and former operators of Autocom Nissan at Broadway and 27th Streets in Oakland.” His lawyer “argues that when the dealership painted over the mural in 2013, they violated the U.S. Visual Artist Rights Act (VARA), a law dating back to 1990. Among other things, the law requires a building owner to give an artist a 90-day notice before the mural is removed or painted over, so the artist can take back or at least document the work.” The mural itself predates VARA by three years — it was painted in 1987 — but the lawyer is taking the position that the 1990 law stripped rights from owners of existing mural works that had not changed ownership before the law’s passage, and reassigned them to original artists. [KQED, Contra Costa Times] We’ve covered VARA and the misnamed concept of “moral rights” before.
One Comment
“(2) With respect to works of visual art created before the effective date set forth in section 610(a) of the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, but title to which has not, as of such effective date, been transferred from the author, the rights conferred by subsection (a) shall be coextensive with, and shall expire at the same time as, the rights conferred by section 106”
Looks like the painter is mis-reading the above text of the statute as he has no other leg to stand on. Sale or ownership transfer of the work occurred in 1987 when he cashed the check, which should sufficiently establish that title to the work transferred from the author to the owner of the property.