A wine steward who plucked artwork off hotel and gallery walls in a bicoastal spree admitted Tuesday to stealing a $350,000 drawing in New York, resolving charges here after serving jail time in California.

Via Artdaily.org

Yep, you heard right. Art Series Hotel Group offered a challenge to Banksy lovers, offering them a chance to own a Banksy art work if they could successfully steal it from one of their hotels.

A huge thanks to our friend, Blaise Niosi, for the heads up on this one.

The American Society of Media Photographers and Picture Archive Council of America have filed a joint amicus brief in support of Patrick Cariou. The brief was written by the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

Marc Jancou Fine Art has sued Sotheby’s and Cady Noland for breach of contract and tortious interference with a contract. Jancou alleges that in or around November 2011, Noland tortiously interfered with the consignment agreement between Jancou and Sotheby’s by persuading Sotheby’s to refuse to put her artwork up for auction. Jancou alleges that Sotheby’s acted in response to Noland by withdrawing the work from auction.

The lawsuit was filed with the NY Supreme Court. You can access the complaint here.

William Patry, senior copyright counsel at Google, opines on the public domain as well as current U.S. copyright terms and their detrimental effects.

Via CNN.

On the proposed Los Angeles City ordinance. On a public hearing concerning the proposed ordinance. And on whether the proposed ordinance should refer to murals as fine art and not commercial signs, and whether murals should have moral rights protection under California law and the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act.

Seems like it. And now a custom car maker who goes by the name of Gotham Garage will have to prove that it did not infringe DC Comics’ copyright to the Batmobile. You see, Gotham Garage decided to build and sell replica Batmobiles — without DC Comics’ permission. DC Comics flew out of their bat cave (lower case “b” so as to not run the possibility of infringing DC Comics’ trademark) and sued Gotham Garage claiming copyright infringement, trademark infringement, trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition under the Lanham Act, and common law unfair competition.  Yikes!

Anyhow, Judge Ronald Lew, of the Central District of California, found that Gotham Garage’s claim that the Batmobile was not protected by copyright to be, let’s just say, pure bat guano, meaning it had no teeth. Gotham Garage will now have to answer DC’s allegations that the full-size, drivable Batmobile replicas infringe DC’s rights to the car’s design.

For those of a legal persuasion, the case is DC Comics v. Mark Towle et al (2:11-cv-03934).

Via the Hollywood Reporter and Mr. Pink.