After a legal dispute lasting more than 2 years between the British artist and a postcard company, a court made up of 3 judges from the European Intellectual Property Union has ruled against Banksy.

The lawsuit arose after the “Full Color Black” company used one of Banksy's works for one of its cards. Banksy sued them for violation of his intellectual property rights, and declared that as the original creator of the works, only he had the right to commercial exploitation of them. To reinforce this last argument, the artist launched a line of official products under the “Gross Domestic Products” brand in October 2019, to legitimize his right to reproduce his works.

Full Color Black, for its part, declared that this last action was an act “incompatible with honest practices” and that, being an anonymous artist, the company should be able to reproduce the works since the undisputed owner of the economic rights of the works cannot be identified.

The work that sparked the legal battle was “Love is in the air”, a work that illustrates a man with a covered face throwing a bouquet of flowers and that was painted in the West Bank, Jerusalem. And although the trial revolved around the exploitation of this specific work, the ruling sets a precedent that could affect the British artist's entire portfolio, since all of his works have been created and registered anonymously.

With information from Artsy News and BBC.