Legal profiles of the street art

Introduction

Street art is a wonderful kind of artistic expression and has the advantage of being accessible to all.

Delineating its legal contours, however, is as important as it is, at times, difficult.

Surely those street artists who believe that these works of art should be free from any bridling will not agree with this statement.

In any case, whether one agrees with legal regulation or not, street art also falls into a context to which peculiar rules apply.

What street art means

Street art is a type of artistic-creative expression made on urban spaces, visible and more or less accessible to all.

The category includes the most varied types of artistic works, such as murals, sculptures, installations, and all kinds of drawings. These works must have a minimum of artistic content; therefore, expressions that do not incorporate any are not included in this list.

A separate discussion must be made for the “tag”, the code name or signature of “graffiti artists,” those who, generally using spray cans, make their own tag or generally other symbols or drawings on public places or means.

While some consider tags to be among the works of street art, others tend to categorically exclude them.

Street art and copyright law

Legally, street art, falls among the figurative works of art and is therefore protected by Law No. 633 of April 22, 1941 on the “Protection of Copyright and Other Rights Related to its Exercise,” also known as the copyright law.

Below are some of the issues regulated.

The rights to works of street art

The copyright law reserves the property rights of the work of art, and thus its economic exploitation, to the author for seventy years beyond his death.

Moral rights, on the other hand, are not subject to any time limit. These include the right to object to any use of the work that may prejudice the artist’s reputation or honor.

In this area, then, special emphasis is placed on the contextualization of the work of art, and thus on the place where the artist decides to create or install it. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that even the decontextualization of the street art work, perhaps in order to display it in more traditional contexts, such as museums, can give a rise to a right of opposition on the part of the author. This orientation is also supported by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which affirms that the substitution of the support on which the work of art is made results in the creation of a reproduction of the work.

In addition, to the street artist must also be granted the right to destroy the artwork. This may happen both in directly and indirectly ways; as in the case where the artist decides to make his artwork in contexts that accelerate its process of deterioration or destruction to a greater extent than is normally the case for this type of work of art.

Lastly, the author has the right to acknowledge the authorship of the artwork even when it has been created anonymously or when a pseudonym has been indicated.

The commissioned works of street art

In the event that a work is carried out by the artist on commission, as a general rule, the commissioner, both public or private, acquires the rights of economic exploitation of the same.

These rights are acquired limited of the object of the commission and the agreed purposes.

In any case, the artist retains the moral rights to his or her work.

Street art and the issue of unlawfulness

The legality of the artwork does not note as a necessary requirement for its protection. Therefore, the protection that copyright law accords to the work is valid even if the work of street art incorporates profiles of illegality, public order or morality.