If nothing else, America's jurisprudence proves that it can, at a minimum, accept as valid any cockamamie claim, willingly host endless litigation and controversy, create fanciful legal interpretations (and precedents) on all varieties of minutiae, and spawn a flood of irrelevant media attention.   In this case, a graffiti artist has filed legal objection over a company's creation of an advertisement which displayed in the background his bit of self-confessed vandalism.

      Last October, fashion house H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB) hired a production firm to produce an advertisement on the grounds of the William Sheridan Playground in Brooklyn - in front of a vandalized handball court.   The production firm checked with playground officials, and was told that the graffiti on the handball court was unauthorized, and the artist was unknown.   Taking their reply as 'no objection' to the filming, the advertisement was filmed and subsequently used by H&M in their advertising campaign.

      Graffiti artist Jason Williams (tag: Revok), who vandalized the handball court in the first place, is claiming copyright protection over use of the graffiti in question, and has instructed his lawyer to issue a cease-and-desist order to H&M.   Graffiti artists, it seems, now regularly retain lawyers...ahennnnh....   (We note here that ceasing-and-desisting would not be required by H&M - should they be willing to make an adequate financial settlement to Revok - and per percentage, to his lawyer, Jeff Gluck.   Surprise, surprise....)

      But I digress -    On receipt of the cease-and-desist order, H&M the replied to Revok's lawyer stating that due diligence had been done and that playground officials had no objection to filming.   Further, H&M filed suit against Revok to void the cease-and-desist order, stating Revok had no legal claim to this piece of graffiti, and to establish that H&M therefore would be able to display their advertisement without remuneration to Revok.

      This filing by H&M caused a minor furor, a backlash against H&M, on the Internet's social media.   So much so, that H&M have retracted the legal filing.

      To date, there has been no resolution.   A legal resolution of this, and like issues, would first require a determination / clarification as to whether a person committing an illegal act is to be allowed to benefit from that illegal act.   Or does committing an illegal act prevent the perpetrator from retaining personal property rights, to include copyright protection?      ...And America's litigation mania goes on unabated, accomplishing nothing constructive, needlessly consuming court resources - and enriching the lawyers....

Graphic excerpts above are from Internet sources, and are, under current legal precedents and prevailing interpretations
considered 'Fair Use' under Copyright Law.   Copyright of all original artwork resides exclusively with the artists.