> Every graffiti artist that tagged that building knew it could come down at any time. They knew they could be either replaced or entirely removed.

> This is not the legal standard that installation art is held to.

It is not unreasonable that it should be, absent any agreement to the contrary. At least, it is not unreasonable that the standard could be reexamined.

> It is not unreasonable that it should be

It actually is, and if you're interested in understanding why, I'd invite you to read up on installation art and the copious case law surrounding it, both in New York City (where a lot of that precedent was initially set, incidentally) and across the country (since this is a federal lawsuit).

> At least, it is not unreasonable that the standard could be reexamined.

That's not how common law works. When there's a clear legal precedent (which there is, in this case), it's not the responsibility of the judge to legislate from the bench and overturn existing standards (either codified standards - like this one is - or standards set by case law).

The question in this suit is whether the legal standard applies; the jury determined that it did.

You are repeatedly quoting the law to avoid discussing whether there are any ethical issues here, but if this were purely a matter of the law, it would be uninteresting.

> You are repeatedly quoting the law to avoid discussing whether there are any ethical issues here

That's a pretty great distance to move the goalposts. The original comment questions legal matters (whether the owner acted in bad faith, whether the law was broken, and which side the judge [should] decide to be correct). Hence why we're discussing the legal standards.

If you want to discuss ethical issues, I'd suggest a new comment thread, because that hasn't come up at all in this one.

You might have taken a look before you wrote that, as the original post in this thread is pretty clearly about the ethical issues beyond the narrow facts of the law.