A Street Artist Is Suing a Grocery Chain for Allegedly Using His Work in an Oprah-Narrated Super Bowl Ad Without His Consent

Chris Williams, an artist based in Des Moines, Iowa, who goes by
the pseudonym CAW, has filed a copyright infringement suit against
national grocery store chain Hy-Vee after the company allegedly
used images of a mural he created in an advertising campaign
narrated by Oprah Winfrey without his permission.

Williams painted the outdoor mural on the broad side of a
building in October 2018 and signed it as “CAW” on its lower
right-hand corner. He painted the lower left corner with his
Instagram contact information, @KingCAW, according to the complaint,
which was filed August 1 in a US District Court in California,
where the ad campaign was distributed, according to the
complaint.

According to court papers, earlier this year, Hy-Vee
“inexplicably featured the mural in a marketing campaign… without
the artist’s knowledge or consent. The campaign included a
commercial—with lingering shots of the mural—that premiered during
the Super Bowl and continued to air on television for several
months thereafter. The campaign was also posted widely across
Hy-Vee’s social media, including on its YouTube channel.”

A representative for Hy-Vee did not respond to request for
comment by publication time.

According to Williams’s lawsuit, Hy-Vee’s “exploitation of the
mural is particularly damaging because Williams has carefully
avoided any association with corporate or mass market consumerism.
Despite offers, he has very rarely made his original art available
as part of corporate advertising campaigns—partly for artistic
reasons but also because doing so would diminish the value of his
work.”

The complaint asserts that nothing is more antithetical to a
street artist’s credibility than association with something as
banal and commercial as a grocery store chain. Williams alleges
misappropriation of the mural and says Hy-Vee also removed his
signature from the advertising materials. He is seeking attorney
fees and punitive damages for claims including “alteration and
removal of copyright management information under the Digital
Millenium Copyright Act.”

“My client gave Hy-Vee an opportunity to do the right thing.
Instead, they completely ignored him and brushed him aside,”
Williams’s Los Angeles-based attorney, Jeff Gluck, told artnet News
via email. “Chris decided to file this lawsuit to protect his
rights and the rights of all artists who find their work being used
without permission. The artist community will not stand for this
type of behavior and we will fight back.”

The post A Street Artist Is Suing a Grocery Chain for
Allegedly Using His Work in an Oprah-Narrated Super Bowl Ad Without
His Consent appeared first on artnet News.