photo: novinite 247
Visual artist Valentin Georgiev from Ruse won a court case against the Ivan Vazov school for destroying his mural on one of the walls in the music room. The artist created the mural in 2012 but last summer it was covered with paint with a decision of the school management and a photo wallpaper was stuck to the adjacent wall. The mural represented a sheet music with birds, notes, flowers and children on it in harmony with several warm colours. Georgiev’s lawyer Pavlina Ivanova explained that his copyright is protected by law, and no one asked his permission to delete the work. Therefore, a lawsuit was initiated last year.
Attorney Ivanova said this is the first case of copyright infringement in the field of visual arts in the country. According to publications in the legal journals many such cases exist in Bulgaria, but they are all for copyright infringement of music or illegal use, or for copyright infringement of architectural design. She believes that artists must know their intellectual property rights and protect them.