Street Art and Public Domain
I am currently investigating on question that is relevant for my “Street Art Trading Cards” project. The question whether Street Art in general is in the Public Domain or the artists still are able to claim a copyright as they would be able with conventional works of art.
You can follow the thread at the Creative Commons Forum here.
What I found interesting, regardless of the legal evaluation is a discussion of the Berlin Street Artist Gould with the German publisher Prestel. Gould has claimed that 25% of all works shown in the book “Berlin Street Art” was made by him and asks the publishes to comment. You can find the open letter from Gould to Prestel here.
This leads me to the conclusion that albeit legally not required it is smart to ask the artists for approval before including their work in any form of commercial work. What might be interesting or something to happen is a general declaration for street artist to issue their work under some Creative Commons or similar license.
