Graffiti has become much more than spray-painted tags and quickly disappearing pieces on train cars and underpasses. In some quarters it is now high art. Highly prized are works by Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the “Hope” poster Fairey made for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who began as a graffiti artist and whose works today command huge prices, and Banksy, whose street works are carefully preserved.  These dramatic changes in the nature and importance of graffiti have created major shifts in and problems for artists and intellectual property law, as well as for property owners. The tensions are very evident in the most recent judicial opinions in the dispute between artists who used to paint at 5Pointz in Long Island City in Queens and the developers who destroyed the highly decorated buildings for construction of two large apartment buildings which are now under construction. (read more…)