Another Seuss Cancellation Thread (Summer 2023)

[marshwiggle]

I notice you didn't tell me where these moral rights come from... but let's try another question: if artists have such moral rights to prevent destruction (or significant alteration?) of their works, then who qualifies as an artist, and what qualifies as art?

Moral rights come from the civil law system of Europe. Think of them ad a natural extension of intellectual property rights. Or do you mean something else?

Where does graffiti come into this? Is it "art" in the sense of civil law even if the person creating it had no permission from the owner of the "canvas" on which it was created? (I'm honestly curious about this; this seems like a deep rabbit hole.)

[Wahoo Redux]

Graffiti is vandalism.

However, I have four huge books of graffiti art on my bookshelf.

I suppose it is illegal art.

[Wahoo Redux]

Moral rights come from the civil law system of Europe. Think of them ad a natural extension of intellectual property rights. Or do you mean something else?

Actually, I put "moral rights for artists" into Google, and they are actually a thing.

https://pages.uoregon.edu/csundt/copyweb/CunardCAA2002.htm

It still comes as a surprise to many people, including some artists, that under both federal law and some state laws, artists retain certain rights to their works of art—the physical objects themselves—even if the artist no longer owns the art. Such rights are known as moral rights and, although acknowledged and protected for a long time in Europe, they are relatively new to American law.
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[apl68]

Graffiti is vandalism.

However, I have four huge books of graffiti art on my bookshelf.

I suppose it is illegal art.

I suppose it's as much ephemeral "performance art" as anything.  Graffiti artists presumably know that their works are not likely to last long, outside any photos taken to document them.  I appreciate that they have so far not seen fit to "perform" on the walls of my house and the library building that I'm responsible for.

[apl68]

Having grown up in the "Green Book" south, amid white/colored waiting rooms and water fountains, and movie theaters with a third balcony and entry on the side and refreshment stand unseen by us white folk, I am ambivalent about removing all vestiges of that evil.  It is too easy to forget.  Sometimes, we must be forced to remember and confront our past.

And the biggest danger is the conceit that "we would never have done those things". As Bill Maher said, "You aren't better; you were just born later."

It never occurred to me to wonder why only white kids were in my schools......

It never occurred to me that white and black (and Hispanic, for that matter) kids didn't belong in school together.  It was my daily experience growing up, and it still is where I live now.  I would think that would be considered a sort of progress.  With all due respect to ciao_yall's attempt to "fix" my post above, it is a different world today.  Maybe not different enough yet, but denying that any progress have ever been made is only going to hurt efforts to make further progress.  It already has.

[Parasaurolophus]

Where does graffiti come into this? Is it "art" in the sense of civil law even if the person creating it had no permission from the owner of the "canvas" on which it was created? (I'm honestly curious about this; this seems like a deep rabbit hole.)

Street art is complicated because part of its nature is to be ephemeral and temporary. I'm not sure how, exactly, it has been treated with respect to moral rights.

But if you want to learn about the nature of street art and graffiti, this article is a great place to start.

Actually, I put "moral rights for artists" into Google, and they are actually a thing.

Did you not believe me?

[marshwiggle]

Where does graffiti come into this? Is it "art" in the sense of civil law even if the person creating it had no permission from the owner of the "canvas" on which it was created? (I'm honestly curious about this; this seems like a deep rabbit hole.)

Street art is complicated because part of its nature is to be ephemeral and temporary. I'm not sure how, exactly, it has been treated with respect to moral rights.

But if you want to learn about the nature of street art and graffiti, this article is a great place to start.

Having skimmed it, I haven't come across any kind of distinction between a giraffe and a swastika. Without any such distinction, the whole discussion becomes kind of pointless.

[ciao_yall]

It's a great shame to have art destroyed like that, but if the public that the public art is meant for finds it offensive then the institution doesn't have much choice but to accommodate them. 

The artist has got to be terribly frustrated.  You don't create work for a commission expecting the purchaser to eventually destroy it.  Yet it is technically the purchaser's right to do so, especially when the art is on the side of a public building.  If the art comes to be a real problem for the purchaser, then out it goes.  It's not like they could have just given several dozen feet of mural back to the artist when they didn't want it anymore. 

An artist's moral rights typically extend to the destruction of the work (although the law on moral rights is poorly developed in general, in particular in the US). That's (presumably) why, in this case, it's being 'permanently covered' instead.

Kind of a tangent, but luxury brands (LVMH, etc) have been able to prevail in court in Europe against EBay, etc for selling counterfeit items. Brands say that these companies are responsible to the consumer, as well as to the greater system of all organizations trying to protect their brands.

In the US, it was "too bad, so sad." EBay is just the transactor and nothing more.

[Parasaurolophus]

Where does graffiti come into this? Is it "art" in the sense of civil law even if the person creating it had no permission from the owner of the "canvas" on which it was created? (I'm honestly curious about this; this seems like a deep rabbit hole.)

Street art is complicated because part of its nature is to be ephemeral and temporary. I'm not sure how, exactly, it has been treated with respect to moral rights.

But if you want to learn about the nature of street art and graffiti, this article is a great place to start.

Having skimmed it, I haven't come across any kind of distinction between a giraffe and a swastika. Without any such distinction, the whole discussion becomes kind of pointless.

I mean... there's a distinction between street art and graffiti. Some of the things we ordinarily call 'graffiti' are, he thinks, better classified as street art, because of how they make use of the space of the street to convey their artistic content; tags and the like don't do that, so they don't get counted as art.

[marshwiggle]

Where does graffiti come into this? Is it "art" in the sense of civil law even if the person creating it had no permission from the owner of the "canvas" on which it was created? (I'm honestly curious about this; this seems like a deep rabbit hole.)

Street art is complicated because part of its nature is to be ephemeral and temporary. I'm not sure how, exactly, it has been treated with respect to moral rights.

But if you want to learn about the nature of street art and graffiti, this article is a great place to start.

Having skimmed it, I haven't come across any kind of distinction between a giraffe and a swastika. Without any such distinction, the whole discussion becomes kind of pointless.

I mean... there's a distinction between street art and graffiti. Some of the things we ordinarily call 'graffiti' are, he thinks, better classified as street art, because of how they make use of the space of the street to convey their artistic content; tags and the like don't do that, so they don't get counted as art.

A picture of a decapitated baby in front of an abortion clinic would also "make use of the space", (fitting his idea of its specific location being important to its message), but it's not something that most people would want to see protected as "art". All kinds of pictures, symbols, etc. could be put in all kinds of places which would have a clear political message which would be deeply offensive to people near those spaces; defending those as "art" makes public spaces a potential battleground.

[kaysixteen]

I had not even thought of the problem of things like Christian-themed art, depictions of the Ten Commandments, etc., on buildings, including/ especially, public ones, but that does demonstrate that if such 'moral rights' are to become a thing here in the US, then this cannot legitimately become a subjective/ case-by-case thing, whereby the Christian artist does not get the right to prevent elimination of his art if the secular artist gets that right.

That said, irrespective of what Europeans think, Americans will just *never* go for the notion that an artist retains control over the disposition of artwork he has sold.   Doing so would radically alter American legal, political, and cultural traditions, and open up all those cans of worms para alluded to.  And, of course, well, ah, the First Amendment  provides no protections for an artist, against the actions of private citizens or organizations.   Really, it doesn't.

Grafitti is another issue indeed.  As noted, it is just plain vandalism, and no sympathy should be shown to grafitti 'artists' (aka 'criminals') who ruin things, and degrade the public sphere, with their crimes.

[Parasaurolophus]

I had not even thought of the problem of things like Christian-themed art, depictions of the Ten Commandments, etc., on buildings, including/ especially, public ones, but that does demonstrate that if such 'moral rights' are to become a thing here in the US, then this cannot legitimately become a subjective/ case-by-case thing, whereby the Christian artist does not get the right to prevent elimination of his art if the secular artist gets that right.

That said, irrespective of what Europeans think, Americans will just *never* go for the notion that an artist retains control over the disposition of artwork he has sold.   Doing so would radically alter American legal, political, and cultural traditions, and open up all those cans of worms para alluded to.  And, of course, well, ah, the First Amendment  provides no protections for an artist, against the actions of private citizens or organizations.   Really, it doesn't.

Grafitti is another issue indeed.  As noted, it is just plain vandalism, and no sympathy should be shown to grafitti 'artists' (aka 'criminals') who ruin things, and degrade the public sphere, with their crimes.

Moral rights already exist in the US, as I explained above.

[Wahoo Redux]

It never occurred to me that white and black (and Hispanic, for that matter) kids didn't belong in school together.  It was my daily experience growing up, and it still is where I live now.  I would think that would be considered a sort of progress.  With all due respect to ciao_yall's attempt to "fix" my post above, it is a different world today.  Maybe not different enough yet, but denying that any progress have ever been made is only going to hurt efforts to make further progress.  It already has.

+1.

[Wahoo Redux]

Actually, I put "moral rights for artists" into Google, and they are actually a thing.

Did you not believe me?

Hey, I believe everything you post, Para!!!

I had just never heard of "moral rights" before and did not realize that y'all were using an actual legal term.

[kaysixteen]

Could you actually point to any court case in the US, where an artist has successfully sued to establish said 'rights'?   There may have occasionally been such cases, *under the radar*, but as I noted, Americans would never tolerate widespread attempts to enshrine such 'rights' under law.