I do not want to brag about myself but I wrote once in the post titled “The Law” that I want to write some article. You may wonder what has happened after almost two years since I’ve issued such statement?
Legal context: This article deals with most important legal questions regarding graffiti. It seeks to identify issues that may arise in copyright and trade mark law. The analysis is based on selected international, Polish, UK, US and European Union regulations.
Key points and practical significance: The social phenomenon known as graffiti is not legally indifferent. However, there are few articles dealing with those issues relevant in IP law. The author presents a short overview of the contemporary graffiti movement. He then presents important IP legal problems that may arise as regards to graffiti activity and briefly analyzes those issues relevant to domestic and international legal regimes.
Key Words: Most graffiti is illegal, but that does not mean that interesting IP questions do not arise in relation to this cultural phenomenon. Following a short overview of the contemporary graffiti movement, the author article seeks to analyse some of the basic questions that arise concerning copyright protection and industrial property law. The author calls for a more focused analysis in the future of this controversial problem.
T. Rychlicki, Legal questions about illegal art, Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice 2008 3(6):393-401; doi:10.1093/jiplp/jpn058.