What? Using Moral Rights to Stop Fracking?
Community members in Peekskill, New York, guided by artist Aviva Rahmani, wandered through their forestland coating trees with blue paint. Their tactic is to cover the woods, where construction is in process on a fracked-gas pipeline, with artworks and then rally to preserve said art. Necessarily, they suppose, saving the works would in turn stop the construction.
The community plans to save the artwork using the Visual Artist’s Rights Act. The Visual Artists Rights Act, although extremely limited, offers moral rights to artists. One of such is the right of an artist to prevent the distortion of their work. Although a clever tactic, it is certainly a Hail Mary pass. In the United States legal system, property owners are generally favored before artists when contemplating whose rights are more protected.