Banksy loses battle with greetings card firm over ‘flower bomber’ trademark
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Banksy has lost a battle with a greetings card firm over the trademark of one of his most famous works. North Yorkshire-based Full Colour Black challenged the artist’s right to trademark his image of a protester throwing a bunch of flowers. The European Union trademark office has thrown out his trademark and accused him of being “inconsistent with honest practices” when trying to protect it. For a trademark to be valid, the holder must sell goods using the image. But the authority said he had filed it in order to avoid using copyright laws, which are separate and would have required the famously elusive Bristolian artist to reveal his true identity. image copyrightGetty Images Banksy f… Continue Reading (3 minute read)
Banksy: you dare use my own spells against me??
Trademark, as opposed to copyright is the right to commerce. He signaled he did not intend to commercialize it, so no trademark for him.
After this, Banksy set up a shop called Gross Domestic Product to commercialise his work so he could then protect it.
It’s weird as they state for copyright laws he as a person would need to come forward, but for trademark it can be a company.
But for exemple Intellectual property of architecture goes to the firm, not the individual architects, same for Disney holding copyrights. So that doesn’t sound coherent.
Otoh McDonald’s lost it’s Big Mac trademark which seems more like a grudge against the company instead of logic or fairness, but then again that makes the trademark office kind of consistant then.
Touché
“You’re never going to get a quote from us to use on your book cover” – Metropolitan Police Spokeswoman
He is more capitalist then he makes out
Seems like a lot of people don’t like him very much but as someone whose only exposure to Banksy is Exit Through The Giftshop I refuse to believe he’s all bark. That is easily one of the three best documentaries I’ve ever seen
Fair call, play on says the umpire.