Painting on Walls

Although graffiti images are copyright eligible in the abstract, the inherently illicit act of spray painting private property without permission complicates efforts to rely on formal law. Marta Iljadica’s empirical research on the graffiti subculture in London demonstrates that despite its illegality, graffiti writing has rules. Those rules address questions of subject matter, originality, and copying common to any expressive work. But they also extend to concerns unique to the graffiti context. Because graffiti is inextricably tied to the physical environment, it raises questions of placement: which structures are appropriate canvasses for graffiti writings and which are off-limits? And because available real estate is limited, graffiti writers must confront scarcity: Under what conditions is it permissible to cover another artist’s work with your own? So while the rules of graffiti writing parallel those of formal copyright law in some ways, they also go beyond it to confront a set of problems graffiti writers are themselves best suited to address.