The Visual Artists Rights Act: A Legal Tool to Preserve Modern Protest Art

• Author: Caleb L. Green
• Pages: 36-64

Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 13, Number 3, a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2020 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.

The Visual

Artists

Rights Act

A Legal Tool to Preserve

Modern Protest Art

By Caleb L. Green

Caleb L. Green is an attorney in Dickinson Wright PLLC’s

Las Vegas ofce, where he focuses on his intellectual property

law practice. He can be reached at cgreen@dickinson-wright.com.

Image: AnthonyNuccio/GettyImages

Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 13, Number 3, a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2020 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.

The death of George Floyd1 has resulted in an international outcry for social and criminal justice

reform, sparking a wave of protests throughout the United States and various countries. On May

26, 2020, the day after George Floyd’s death, Minnesota locals took to the streets to participate

in protest demonstrations.2 These protests swiftly swept throughout the United States. In fact, by

May 28, 2020, every major U.S. city had experienced some form of protest in response to George

Floyd’s death.3 By June 2020’s end, protestors had performed demonstrations in every state within

the United States.4 This wave of civil disobedience and protests expanded worldwide quickly, as

demonstrators gathered internationally throughout Europe, Oceania, Asia, Africa, and Canada.5

However, protesters were not limited to traditional protest demonstrations, such as marches and rallies.

Namely, protestors have embraced nontraditional means to amplify their voice and manifest their con-

stitutional right to protest through creative anti-racist messages, street murals, and related artworks. For

example, on June 5, 2020, a team of eight artists joined a group of community volunteers to create a street

mural with letters 50 feet in length, spelling “BLACK LIVES MATTER” across two city blocks leading to

the White House.6 Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser commissioned the street mural as a symbolic

afrmation of the Black Lives Matter movement and those “who are demanding that we have a more just

criminal justice system.”7 Since then, artists and protesters in other cities have joined the movement and

created street art and murals throughout the United States, including in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Austin,

Cincinnati, and Charlotte. Protestors and artists are still planning to install more murals on public streets in

various other U.S. cities in an effort to protest the ongoing social injustices in our country.