VARA

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The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), 17 U.S.C. § 106A, is a United States law granting certain rights to artists.

VARA was the first federal copyright legislation to grant protection to moral rights. Under VARA, works of art that meet certain requirements afford their authors additional rights in the works, regardless of any subsequent physical ownership of the work itself, or regardless of who holds the copyright to the work. For instance, a painter may insist on proper attribution of his painting, and in some instances may sue the owner of the physical painting for destroying the painting even if the owner of the painting lawfully owned it.

Although federal law had not acknowledged moral rights before this act, some state legislatures and judicial decisions created limited moral-rights protection. The Berne Convention required the protection of these rights by signatory states, and it was in response that the U.S. Congress passed the VARA.

On June 13, 2018, Judge Frederic Block of the Eastern District of New York issued an impassioned decision upholding the $6.75 million damage award he granted the aerosol artists of 5Pointz in February 2018. The court denied the defendants’ post-trial motion to grant a new trial or vacate the February…
Continue Reading Update: “5Pointz” Artists Hold On to Win

On February 12, Judge Frederic Block of the Eastern District of New York awarded $6.75 million in statutory damages to the aerosol artists of “5Pointz,” agreeing with the jury’s advisory finding that property developer Jerry Wolkoff violated those artists’ “right of integrity” under the Visual Artists Rights Act (“VARA”).

As…
Continue Reading Update: Enforcing an Artist’s Rights in Street Art

On October 27, 2017, the New York Chapter of the Copyright Society of the USA hosted a panel exploring the history, caselaw and policies underlying the Visual Artists Rights Act (“VARA”).[1]  The panel featured Amy Adler, Emily Kempin Professor of Law at New York University School of Law;…
Continue Reading CSUSA Hosts VARA Panel During “5Pointz” Trial

Read time: 2 minutes

A six-member jury has returned an advisory verdict finding that a property developer violated more than twenty graffiti artists’ “right of integrity” under the Visual Artists Rights Act (“VARA”) when it whitewashed a building bearing nearly fifty of those artists’ works….
Continue Reading Update: Enforcing an Artist’s Rights in Street Art

As street art – typically painting or drawing on someone else’s wall – grows in status in art circles,1 street artists are finding that their work is increasingly being exploited without their permission. While a number of these artists have attempted to assert copyright2 or Visual Artists Rights…
Continue Reading Unchartered Territory: Enforcing an Artist’s Rights in Street Art

Read time: 5 minutes

In a recent decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals adopted a utility-based standard for determining when a work of art is deemed “applied art” and therefore not entitled to protection under the Visual Artists Rights Act (“VARA”).1 VARA was enacted in 1990 as an amendment to the Copyright Act, and incorporated the concept of droit moral……
Continue Reading Cheffins v. Stewart: Burning Man; Burning Ships