The Right to Create Art in a World Owned by Others – Protecting Street Art and Graffiti Under Intellectual Property Law

By Britney Karim

The rising popularity of what was widely regarded, until very recently, as the underground artistic movement of graffiti and street art has unearthed a centuries old conflict that is rooted in the throes of human expression. For hundreds of thousands of years, humans have found creative, political, societal, emotional, and psychological shelter through the medium of expression known as art. At its most basic form, art is a means of communication. Communication is a skill mostly exclusive to the human species and an inherent right, which each individual is born with, and which we have sought, and fought, throughout time to protect. This much is evident in the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a re-dress of grievances.” However, when addressing the largely grey area that graffiti occupies in matters of the law, the issue is not as black and white as it seems. The art of graffiti has never occupied a more visible, controversial, and even profitable, space in contemporary society than it does right now. While the artistic movement of street art and graffiti has certainly surfaced time and again throughout history, the form of expression has become the focal point of a heavily polarized debate, given its more often than not unsanctioned nature. At the heart of the debate lies the question of whether graffiti and street art should be formally and legally recognized as forms of art, and, therefore, extended the protections enjoyed by other forms of art and related intellectual property?

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The Rise of Esports: The Current State of Esports, Its Impacts on Contract Law, Gambling, and Intellectual Property

By Justin Ronquillo

Gone are the days when playing video games meant booting up a game of Pong on the old Atari systems or going to the local laundromat to play a game of Ms. Pac-Man. Today, video games are played anywhere, at any time, all around the world. Video games are a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States alone.1 With streaming platforms like Twitch.tv and YouTube Gaming increasing concurrent viewership numbers annually,2 it is evident that consuming video game content as entertainment is not just a fad, it is the norm. This is the driving force behind esports’ rise.

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Uncertainty Surrounding the Repeal of the Internet Privacy Rules

By Isha Srivastava

The concept of personal privacy is a fundamental right that dates back to the beginning of common law. During a time when technology was being newly integrated into society, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis recognized the basic right, “to be let alone.”

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