Mural Mural on the Wall

It's hard to take sides on this burning issue between the National Press Club and the Neo Angono Artists Collective.  It seems to me that everyone is on the side of the artists who painted the mural.  Legally, they're correct — as artists and creators, the Intellectual Property Code grants them moral rights over their works such that they can prevent the unauthorized alteration of their work "which would be prejudicial to (their) honor or reputation."  Moral rights are retained even though the artist has given up his copyright (although he can waive his moral rights, too).  Note that in the case of commissioned works like the NPC Mural, the copyright is retained by the artist (in the absence of a contrary agreement).  So, theoretically, the Neo Angono Collective can sue for copyright infringement, too, on the theory that the work is an unauthorized transformation of the work.

Well and good.  

But it occurred to me that the National Press Club might have a defense and so I thought one up.  It's based on information passed on to me by an NPC officer.  Apparently, the press didn't carry the NPC's side of the story (irony of ironies, isn't it?).  Anyway, my legal defense for them is based on the narration of facts that was relayed to me.  It seems that the NPC required the Artists to submit thumbnails of the mural and the NPC Board approved every aspect of the work.  However, what was delivered deviated from the approved thumbnails.  These were the items that were subsequently changed.  In short, the Artists made insertions into the work that their client (the NPC) did not approve.  You could say that the NPC was duped and later, outsmarted in the media storm that followed, because the victim was turned into a bad guy.

So, on the assumption that the Artists surreptitiously inserted unacceptable items into the mural, the NPC can defend itself on the ground that the NPC is merely exercising its Constitutionally protected right to free speech when it altered the mural.  Free speech?   Well, I've never been to the NPC nor have I viewed the mural but I imagine that if I see the mural, I would assume that the work represents the views of the NPC.  This is why the NPC board approved every aspect of the work — to ensure that their speech was accurately depicted in the work.  However, the Artists inserted their own speech into the work and now insist that their speech be retained in the work citing as their legal basis, copyright law. 

 This is a bit unusual.  In many cases, copyright law is used to suppress speech,  not protect it.  For example,  if I owned a video of GMA's Rizal Day promise (not to run for President) and someone wanted to use it for a political video attacking the GMA administration, I could refuse to give a license (thereby invoking copyright law to prevent political speech critical of GMA).  In my view, this is copyright misuse — the assertion of intellectual property rights for purposes other than to protect the works from unauthorized (or uncompensated) exploitation.  Examples abound especially with the Digital Millennium Copyright  Act (DMCA) involving printer toner cartridges and even garage door openers. 

My argument (in defense of the NPC) is that the Artists may not rely upon copyright or moral rights in order to force the NPC to adopt the Artists' political speech embodied in the mural.  The NPC itself has the right to free speech and it can alter the work in order to make the mural conform to the agreed content.  After all, didn't the Artists in this case interfere with the NPC's attempt to express its views through the mural.  (BTW, the Civil Code provides that in case of contractual breach, the NPC has the right to require that the work be redone — properly — at the expense of the Artists.)  There's precedent to support the argument that the mural constitutes imposed speech.  In Cohen v. California, the US Supreme Court ruled that a person wearing a T-shirt saying "Fuck the Draft" is exercising his free speech rights to express his opinion about the war.  Also, in Wooley v. Maynard, a Jehovah's Witness was permitted to cover up his license plate which contained the words "Live Free or Die" because he had the constitutionally protected right not to adopt that speech.  These cases support the view that the Artists in this case cannot be permitted to impose their speech upon the NPC — to do so would be an unconstitutional application of copyright law.