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A comment on Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law to Avoid Copyright Law.

Re:Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law ... by nullc on Sunday October 27, 2019 @02:14AM (#21368129)
Huh.

The potential non-copyrightability of graffiti I understand but I am failing to understand the anonymous ownership issue. Why he cannot transfer the copyright for the work to a corporation which enforces the copyright? -- it isn't like he needs to register the work before transferring it to the company, the berne convention assures that.

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Re:Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law ... by cormacrelf on Sunday October 27, 2019 @02:31AM (#21368172)
You understand what? Graffiti is copyrightable.

He can’t transfer it because that (in general) must be done in writing and with a signature. Any target of copyright litigation will demand to know who is purported to have assigned copyright, so just putting “Banksy” there won’t hold up. Those are the evidentiary issues.

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Re:Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law ... by droithomme on Sunday October 27, 2019 @02:30AM (#21368171)
Graffitti is copyrightable.

In the US copyrightable works can be copyrighted by an anonymous or pseudononymous creator. There's even a box to check if the creator is anonymous.

https://www.copyright.gov/eco/help-author.html

Perhaps in the EU anonymous works can not be copyrighted?

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Re:Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law ... by anticensor on Sunday October 27, 2019 @03:14AM (#21368293)
They can, but you cannot remain anonymous before a court in Europe.
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Re:Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law ... by nullc on Sunday October 27, 2019 @01:20PM (#21371037)
You can't in the US either, but the creator wouldn't need to appear before a court, the copyright holder would.
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Re:Banksy's Fake Store Is an Attempt to Abuse Trademark Law ... by beerandt on Monday October 28, 2019 @12:10AM (#21374187)
The copyright holder needs to prove he's the copyright holder, which is difficult to do without a paper trail to the creator.
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