UTICA , N.Y., – A Northern District federal judge has sternly rebuked state workers who destroyed a mural promoting the right to counsel and protesting possible cuts in legal services. But U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd said the artist’s claim under the Visual Artists Rights Act must fail because the mural, while “unquestionably of artistic merit,” was commissioned for one-time promotional use and was not intended to have lasting value.
Pollara v. Seymour, 99-CV-923, called upon the court to decide just what is protected artwork under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), 17 U.S.C. �106A. The act recognizes so-called “moral ownership rights” and gives artists a means of safeguarding the integrity of their work from distortions, mutilations and modifications that would be detrimental to the artist’s reputation. It also provides artists with the right to protect from destruction “work of recognized stature.”
