An interesting graffiti case, filed under “We told you this can happen”, but not in the way expected. A lawyer representing graffiti artists contacted the Mercedes Benz company (also known as “Holy crap, how is Fred able to buy that Mercedes Benz on his crappy salary?!) about Mercedes Benz infringing on his client’s graffiti artwork. Mercedes Benz’s response? They preemptively sued the graffiti artists to seek a court’s ruling that their use is a fair use and not an infringement.

Our opinion on this case? We don’t have one yet. We’ve learned long ago you can’t depend on articles (especially on the Interweb) and listing to lawyers talking to the press. What really counts is reading the court papers to find out the real facts and the real decision.

Until we have something like that to report back on, here’s a link to one of the many stories about this case.

 

Mercedes-Benz Is Suing Artists Who Accused the Car Company of Copyright Infringement