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"VARA-90": What Landlords Can Do to Stop the Aerosol Spread … of Graffiti Artists' Claims

By Joseph I. Farca
June 01, 2020

No, it's not another virus. "VARA" is the federal Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (17 U.S.C. §101, et seq.). The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in February 2020 affirmed an award of $6.75 million in statutory damages — the maximum — to "aerosol" (a/k/a graffiti) artists against the owners of warehouse buildings on which the plaintiff-artists' works were painted because the building owners destroyed the works in violation of VARA. See, Castillo v. G&M Realty L.P., 950 F.3d 155 (2d Cir. 2020).

As the Second Circuit Court of Appeals summarized by way of background:

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