A member of Ourmedia.org this morning raised an interesting question that has both legal and ethical dimensions: How should photos of graffiti be licensed, if at all?
Among the points he raises is that under U.S. law (as well as other jurisdictions), you can’t profit from an illegal activity like graffiti, so the graffiti artist can’t pursue a claim of infringement, and yet copyright apparently still attaches to the creative work, although that’s less clear if the work is the product of several individuals over time.
At any rate, it’s an interesting question (especially for IP law students), and we’ll like see a good number of such works of Remix Culture (in the form of photos and videos) displayed on sites like Ourmedia or Google Video in the months ahead. I suggested that a Creative Commons attribution share-alike noncommercial license was the most appropriate license when capturing an image of such graffiti art. Thoughts?
