Comments on: $1 Million Lawsuit Filed Against Man Who Torched La Contessa

By: Kaffevollautomaten

Kaffevollautomaten — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:56:33 +0000

I can’t agree with the statement it looks like “making money”.
I think Little Lemonade is right!

By: Little Lemonade

Little Lemonade — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:16:53 +0000

Hey! it wasn’t left there alone for 2 years at all! It was at BM2005 for crying out loud. I saw it. Plus it was visited three months before it burned which is how they know the figurehead had been stolen. Am I the only one who’s not drinking the Stewart koolaid?

By: UnaKRon

UnaKRon — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:43:17 +0000

See I thought it was the “to prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of that work is a violation of that right. ”

…but what is “recognized stature?”

But then again, the new owner has his own rights and never gave permission to store the art there. I’m waiting to see how this plays out.

By: Flüge Thailand

Flüge Thailand — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:55:48 +0000

I wonder how it will end. La Contessa was a great “ship”, and I wish I could have seen her, but I can understand, why Stewart thought about it as junk. If something would lie on my property for years, I would have thrown it away too.
He bought the property, with theship on it, and to judge him, I would have to know if he had a way to contact the owner and what Joan Grant, the original owner of the property, told him about La Contessa.
All things considered, it looks like making money for me at the moment. If they were really all over their ship, they wouldn’t have it left alone for 2 years without checking.

By: Mike Tattoo

Mike Tattoo — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:45:21 +0000

Makes you wonder what the reaction would be if the Burning Man LLC decided to sue Paul Addis $1,000,000 for torching their private property.

By: Richard Murray

Richard Murray — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:27:01 +0000

I think the key to the law they’re attempting to sue under is the phrase “the author of a work of visual art shall have the right to prevent the use of his or her name as the author of the work [...] in the event of a [...] mutilation [...] of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation”

On a quick read through, there doesn’t appear to be language that grants authors the wholesale right to prevent the destruction of a work, merely the protection of reputation.

Ie, Stewart couldn’t have put up posters “Watch me burn Cheffins and Jones work La Contessa Friday at noon!” — this would have been a direct violation of the spirit and word of the law. Simply burning abandoned property that had been there for two years with no contact? The artists will likely need to show how this was not abandoned goods and how they were defamed.

That said, I’m no lawyer, just an artist.