Legality of street art

1. Legality of Street Art

2. Laws around Street Art
 Graffiti is mostly illegal and classed as vandalism, laws
surrounding Graffiti can punish a person quite severely.
There are fixed places where the local authorities and
police allow people to do their graffiti however when
someone does graffiti somewhere else then it is seen
as them breaking the law. Police see graffiti as an
offence of criminal damage and if someone is
prosecuted for it then they can face a fine or even
being sent to prison.

3. Criminal Damage Act 1971
 Section 1 (1) A person who without lawful excuse*
destroys or damages any property belonging to another
intending to destroy or damage any such property or
being reckless as to whether any such property would
be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence.
 If someone is caught applying graffiti without the
permission of the owner of the canvas they can be
arrested and charged under the Criminal Damage Act
and if found guilty they can be fined or imprisoned or
both.

4. The Anti-Social Behavior Act
2003
 Under this legislation, which was amended by the Clean
Neighborhoods and Environment Act 2005, a person caught
applying graffiti without permission can be issued with a
fixed penalty notice by the local authority. The fixed penalty
for this offence is currently £75, but the local authority can
stipulate a higher or lower amount. If the person fails to pay
the penalty they will be subject to further criminal sanctions.
The Act also makes it illegal for retailers to sell spray paint to
people under the age of 16. In order to avoid a hefty fine the
retailer has to prove that they took reasonable steps to
confirm the age of the person buying it.

5. Rights to Street art
 When street artists put their work on private owners or
private business owners property then the street artists
who’s work is on the property loses all rights to the art
work. The property rights all go to the property owners
which the art is found on and then the owners can sell
the art work for their own profit since the work is found
on their property.

6. Legal Walls
• Some places offer walls to street artists which they can legally put their work
upon. This could be things such as commissioned murals in which case the
street artist could also get paid for putting up their work. These sort of legal
walls are used to encourage street artists to do street art legally rather than
illegally. Some walls that are legal are; Withington Pumping Station in
Manchester, Cheetham Park in Stalybridge also has a legal street art
wall. There are several walls around Manchester and different parts of the
world where street artists can put their work up legally.
Malmo
Melbourne

7. Tape Art
 Tape Art is a form of street art in which street artists are
able to create different kinds of work and patterns. The
fact this kind of street art uses masking tape, makes it
non permanent so that makes it perfectly legal for
street artists to do, as the masking tape will eventually
come off by itself.
Work by Buff Diss Work by Michelangelo

8. Bibliography
 https://legal-walls.net/
 http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mary-mccarthy/street-
art-legalities_b_4425434.html
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_art
 https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice-points/who-
owns-street-art/5051041.article
 http://artlawjournal.com/6-copyrights-street-art/