File:Banksy-ps2.jpg

English:  Banksy graffiti on the Bottom of Park Street Bristol.

Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred to Commons by User:Mattbuck using CommonsHelper. Copied back to wikipedia per discussion at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bristol/archive1

Bristol

For copyright debates about this image see below + Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Bristol/archive1 and Law for Artists (pages 129-131

To illustrate the contribution Banksy has made to the street scene of the city of Bristol

Text would not be able to represent the artwork. Any other picture of Banksy graffiti would be subject to the same challenges.

It has been argued that as UK Freedom of Panorama does not cover 2D works a fair use statement is needed to support its inclusion in an article on wikipedia. Graffiti are essentially murals that have been painted illegally. Photographs of graffiti have long been allowed on Commons. As artistic works, copyright in graffiti will theoretically belong to the original artist. However, in many cases the artist is unknown, proof of authorship of the art is problematic, and, some believe, the artist would have difficulty enforcing their copyright since that would require a court to uphold the validity of an illegal act as the basis for damages or other relief against a third party. The 'clean hands doctrine', sometimes known as Ex turpi causa non oritur actio, is specifically applied to copyright in the 2015 English legal text Law for Artists. At p176 is this statement:

Ex turpi causa non oritur actio - from a dishonorable cause, an action cannot arise (you cannot, for example, claim copyright in a work created through criminal activity.)