A jury has concluded that 5 Pointz developer Jerry Wolkoff violated the law when he whitewashed that buildings without warning, erasing graffiti from dozens of artists. The jury’s findings will serve as a recommendation to the lawsuit’s presiding judge, who will then render a final verdict, reports the New York Times.
“The jury sided strongly with the rights of the artists. This is a clear message from the people that the whitewashing of the buildings by its owner was a clear and willful act,” said lawyer Eric Baum, who represents the artists that filed the suit.
The judge will ultimately determine the repercussions of Wolkoff’s actions, which could include making him pay the artists for destroying their artwork.
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From The Communist Manifesto
1848 by Karl Heinrich Marx
1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.
As our previous President Barack Husain Obama said: "You didn't build that", speaking of business owners and entrepreneurs who have been, and continue to be harassed and fleeced by the heavy hand of government in the form of taxes,fees,surcharges, fines, regulations and the like to an ever growing, never satisfied leviathan!
This is an egregious erosion of the basic right of private property.
As John Locke explained, The right to private property is the cornerstone of Liberty and Freedom! This encapsulates how each man relates to God and to other men. Man originally exists in a state of nature in which he need answer only to the laws of nature and natures God.
Think of this the next time your property is vandalized, destroyed or stolen (either by common criminals or the more sophisticated government variety)!
This decision will have long time reprocussions.
The inmates are operating the asylum...
This is fifty times too wrong.
NYC, where your property is not your property.
Yea, and where is 'arts czar' Jimmy Van Bramer on this - obviously hiding as he is recognized even by eye-rolling party insiders as a publicity hog.
Why bringing acts from the reject pile at the old Ed Sullivan Show - Chinese ribbon dances! Mexican mariachi bands! Mongolian monk chants! to a concert stage to you.
Well rollover Beethoven!
@ sarc
Obama actually paraphrased and took out of context, weakly I might add, Elizabeth Warren for that line "you didn't build that" which chastised business owners for moving their companies overseas or into poorer nations.
I am layman when it comes to property and law, but Wolkoff might have won this if he didn't steal/appropriate the 5 pointz material,name and legacy to decorate the lobby walls of his product/building and if he didn't stupidly and pointlessly white wash the building before he demolished it.
It should be pointed out that street art has been a major selling point for properties of the gentrification industrial complex, so the 5 pointz crew had that in their favor also. Which might have played a factor in this judge's decision.
Anon 1 & 2, you are aware that property rights extend beyond real estate, yes? The artists had IP over their work. By the Wolkoffs destroying it in the dead of night during the middle of a contested suit over its demolition, if they had an outstanding contract with the Wolfkoffs still in force, they were deprived of the right to preserve it through photography, holding "last hurrah" PR events to raise funds for their next venture, and even potential deals that may have been planned for others to film movies there, etc. Try updating your legal knowledge past the 17th century.
"Just as man can’t exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one’s rights into reality—to think, to work and to keep the results—which means: the right of property. The modern mystics of muscle who offer you the fraudulent alternative of “human rights” versus “property rights,” as if one could exist without the other, are making a last, grotesque attempt to revive the doctrine of soul versus body. Only a ghost can exist without material property; only a slave can work with no right to the product of his effort. The doctrine that “human rights” are superior to “property rights” simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle. Whoever regards this as human and right, has no right to the title of “human.”
The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property and all forms of wealth are produced by man’s mind and labor. As you cannot have effects without causes, so you cannot have wealth without its source: without intelligence. You cannot force intelligence to work: those who’re able to think, will not work under compulsion; those who will, won’t produce much more than the price of the whip needed to keep them enslaved. You cannot obtain the products of a mind except on the owner’s terms, by trade and by volitional consent. Any other policy of men toward man’s property is the policy of criminals, no matter what their numbers. Criminals are savages who play it short-range and starve when their prey runs out—just as you’re starving today, you who believed that crime could be “practical” if your government decreed that robbery was legal and resistance to robbery illegal." - Ayn Rand (from Galt's Speech, Atlas Shrugged)
I like street art, Bushwick where I lived and still work has great murals. They are free. The artists know they will get erased. That's what makes them compelling. They are temporary and ephemeral and sometimes even made with the permission of the building owner.
This ruling is dumb. 5 pointz completely is antithetical to what Graffiti represents: when you commercialize and legalize it in anyway, it stops being authentic.
WHAT !?! Are you kidding me !?! Now all these jerk graffiti artist will be able to continue defacing the whole of this city without reprimand. Further - anyone that does any kind of renovation on any building can cite "Artistic" rights and you won't be able to remove or change the renovation or perhaps sell your own property - this is criminal !! I'm sure this can be appealed and I hope the property owner's attorney goes for the appeal. That jury had an IQ less than a gnat !
WTF are you rambling about, George?
Publish it as an arcane thesis of you must, but please....too long for a comment.
Bottom line FEDERAL LAW trumps ANYBODY'S opinion. Case closed!
Ohmoramus! 5 Ppintz was a LEGALLY permitted space. Learn to read you doofus!
Sarc... UR smokin some weird shit.
Sounds like a real estate troll gnat at work.
Uh Tommy Efreeti..,sounds like the green eyed monster of jealousy lives in your body.
No doubt! Tommy was probably not good enough to paint at 5 Pointz.
A lot of phony haters out there we see!
Get a real life. What was accomplished at 5 Pointz has already made the art history books, while the ignorant are playing with their -----in some toilet!
Dummy....all Any building owner has to do is get a VARA waver signed by any artist who paints on his building and he has the right to obliterate that art at any time. However, when a vandal like Wolkoff mutilates art at 4:00 AM without legally notifying the artists.....who is the lawbreaker ? WOLKOFF! And only that point was just decided in federal court of the United States of America. Smoke on that butt hole!
Eh, I'm not artist but you don't have to be to have a stinkin' opinion like every other body. If they wanted their art to last - they should've paid to put it up in a gallery, ya dig.
Step foot on my property with a spray paint can and you'll need the emergency room !
Uh , Tommy, it is quite clear that you in fact are an artist..a bullshit artist and not very good at it either. All you've displayed is you limited knowledge of anything beyond your nose. 10-4...over and out.
It's not about their art lasting. Federal law REQUIRES a 90 day legal written notice given by Wolkoff and his scumbags. The artists DID NOT BREAK ANY LAWS WHEREAS THE LANDLORD OWNER DID.
Now he will have to account for his vandalism.
Anyone threatening unlawful violence on an open blog site isn't too bright. Should it occur the post can be used in evidence after traced back to the poster by the authorities. Wise up fella! Don't run off at the mouth before it passes through your brain first.
A point to note about 5 Pointz:
Quite a few real estate agents , promoting their luxury LIC residential towers credit 5 Pointz and mentioned it on their promotions AS A PLUS. So, one can say, that 5 Pointz IMPROVED the formerly scuzzy neighborhood around Court Square.
How appropriate a dancing monkey. Your inner character, Tommy?
Dontchaluvit?
Wolkoff is the graffiti vandal here.
About time an arogant shifty developer go it up the ass for a change!
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