Artist's rights? [was: RE: Sci Journals, authors, internet]

[Trei, Peter]

> Ken Brown[SMTP:k.brown at ccs.bbk.ac.uk] wrote:
> "Trei, Peter" wrote:
> 
> > As an example, consider the Richard Serra's 'Tilted Arc', a 12 foot
> > high, 120 foot long, 70 ton slab of rusty (and usually grafitti covered)
> > steel which blocked the entrance to the main Federal building in
> > lower Manhatten for several years. After about a zillion complaints,
> > it was moved, and Serra sued the GSA for $30million, on the grounds
> > that the piece was "site specific", and that by moving it the GSA had
> > destroyed it.
> > 
> > http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/tilted_arc.htm
> 
> But the important point about that is that the artist lost!  According
> to the website the tried "breach of contract, trademark violations,
> copyright infringement and the violation of First and Fifth Amendment
> rights" and lost all of them. So the new law has no real effect other
> than to give a few days work to some lawyers.
> 
> [...]
>  
> > http://www.law.uchicago.edu/Lawecon/WkngPprs_101-25/123.WL.VARA.pdf
> > discusses the  'Visual Arts Rights Act of 1990, which is highly
> > relevant to this topic.
> 
Serra's work was moved in 1989, about a year before VARA went into
effect. I suspect that 'Tilted Arc' affair was one of VARA's motivations
(though
any legislator who voted for it should have been condemned to have a 
Serra sculpture placed in front of his house for a year).

Peter