text: The estate of the late artist Dash Snow is fighting to protect his legacy against the dreaded label of “sellout.” Jade Berreau, the late artist’s former girlfriend and current estate manager, is suing McDonald’s for copying Snow’s graffiti tag, and using it to decorate a number of restaurants without permission. 
   
   In June 2016, Burreau first asked McDonald’s to remove Snow’s recognizable graffiti tag, “SACE,” from the locations that had been redesigned in the graffiti-covered, industrial theme, to no avail. Burreau is now formally suing McDonald’s for “copyright infringement, trademark infringement, unfair competition, falsification of ‘copyright management information’ under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and negligence,” reports the Fashion Law. 
   
   The artist, who died in 2009 at the age of 27, began his career as a street artist in the 1990s, part of a graffiti crew known as IRAK. In a memorial essay, photographer Ryan McGinley wrote that Snow was “number one on the vandal-squad’s most wanted list,” tagging ambitious locations like New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and High Line, and even paying homeless people $20 to tag the clothes on their backs. 
   
   In the McDonald’s in question, the lawsuit claims, the appropriated “SACE” tag is “so prominently placed,” and “was the only element singled out and spotlighted in media coverage surrounding McDonald’s display campaign.” The plaintiff claims that media coverage implied that Snow authorized the use of his work on the walls of the corporate chain. 
   
   The McDonald's in Brixton has been covered in fake graffiti https://t.co/yoa8qVML96 pic.twitter.com/mWGY1s9biI — Evening Standard (@standardnews) March 4, 2016 
   
   Unsurprisingly, Snow, although born into a privileged life, took an anti-commercial stance, and it is safe to assume that he would never have aligned himself with a brand like McDonald’s. 
   
   “He has never made his original art available on the internet, in retail stores, or in restaurants—partly for artistic reasons but also because doing so would diminish the value of his work. Nothing is more antithetical to Mr. Snow’s outsider ‘street cred’ than association with corporate consumerism—of which McDonald’s and its marketing are the epitome,” the lawsuit continues. 
   
   Memo to Brixton McDonalds – your new graffiti lampshades SUCK pic.twitter.com/T1gyGLZWjV — Hannah T-W (@hannahteedub) March 4, 2016 
   
   Back in March, a refurbished McDonald’s in the gentrifying district of Brixton, South London generated controversy for the questionable graffiti-covered décor. Locals took to Twitter to vent their frustration about the “edgy” designs. One twitter user, @bernehxoxo, replied to a tweet from the Evening Standard, “stoked about the sace throw! Rip”. Needless to say, SACE’s family is not so “stoked.” 
   
   Follow artnet News on Facebook: ||||| The late American artist Dash Snow may not be a household name to the average McDonald’s customer—but his artwork might look familiar to frequent diners. 
   
   Seven years after the artist passed away, his estate has filed a lawsuit against the fast food chain, alleging McDonald’s used several of Snow’s signature designs as fake graffiti décor in numerous locations around the world. 
   
   One of the designs in question is actually Snow’s spray-painted pseudonym “S-A-C-E.” 
   
   The images below both appear in the lawsuit as evidence of copyright infringement. On the left is a Snow original "SACE" signature, and the right features a similar-looking design from the wall at a McDonald's location in London: 
   
   “Inexplicably, Defendants [McDonald's] are using Mr. Snow’s artwork as décor in hundreds of McDonald’s restaurants, and are using his name and signature in a manner suggesting that Mr. Snow created all of the surrounding artwork (which adorns the entirety of McDonald’s graffiti themed restaurants),” reads the suit, filed by the late artist’s girlfriend Jade Berreau with whom he has a daughter, and is the administrator of his estate. 
   
   In addition to claiming that the fast food chain violated Snow’s copyright by using his work without permission, the plantiff argues that McDonald’s use of the late artist’s designs could harm the value of Snow’s original artworks—which have sold for hundreds of thousands at auction houses like Sotheby’s. 
   
   Snow, born Dashiell Snow, “carefully avoided any association with corporate culture and mass-market consumerism… He has never made his original art available on the internet, in retail stores, or in restaurants,” argues the lawsuit. McDonald’s is “clearly attempting to trade on Mr. Snow’s name and reputation." 
   
   The lawsuit, filed Oct. 3 in a federal court in Los Angeles, claims that Snow’s family previously asked McDonald’s to remove the graffiti artwork in June but that the chain “arrogantly refused to comply” with the request. 
   
   More from Page Six. ||||| Seven years after artist Dash Snow passed away, his estate is accusing McDonald’s of brazenly swiping one of his signature designs to use as fake “graffiti” decor on eateries around the world. 
   
   When we say “signature,” we don’t just mean that this particular work was intimately associated with Snow; we also mean that the design was actually the spray-painted signature for Snow’s pseudonym “SACE.” 
   
   The two images below are taken from the complaint [PDF]. On the left is a Snow original SACE signature. On the right is a very similar design as seen in a London McDonald’s: 
   
   This image from the Evening Standard shows that the lookalike graffiti isn’t actual tagging by vandals, but is part of the restaurant’s decor: 
   
   The McDonald's in Brixton has been covered in fake graffiti https://t.co/yoa8qVML96 pic.twitter.com/mWGY1s9biI — Evening Standard (@standardnews) March 4, 2016 
   
   In addition to claiming that the fast food chain violated Snow’s copyright by using his work without permission, the late artist’s estate argues that the value of the rest of his artwork — which has sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction, according to the complaint — could be harmed by possibly giving people the impression that the other faux spray paint on the wall was created by Snow. 
   
   This is particularly problematic, argues his estate, because Snow “carefully avoided any association with corporate culture and mass-market consumerism… He has never made his original art available on the internet, in retail stores, or in restaurants.” 
   
   McDonald’s is, per the complaint, “clearly attempting to trade on Mr. Snow’s name and reputation.” His estate points out that the allegedly infringing design is the largest and most prominent part of the McDonald’s wall decor, and the “only element ‘created’ by a famous artist.” 
   
   The estate claims that Snow’s family asked McDonald’s in June 2016 to remove the allegedly offending work, but that the fast food chain has “arrogantly refused to comply.” 
   
   [h/t Page Six]
target: – McDonald's is being sued for allegedly appropriating the work of a deceased graffiti artist without his estate's permission, Consumerist reports. According to Artnet, Dash Snow, who went by the tag SACE, was known for spray painting high-profile locations like the Brooklyn Bridge and even clothes being worn by homeless people. He died in 2009 at the age of 27. Years later, McDonald's redecorated hundreds of its locations with a graffiti motif, Fox News reports. A lawsuit filed Monday by Snow's former girlfriend and current estate manager, Jade Berreau, accuses McDonald's of using Snow's SACE signature as the major element in that redesign without permission. The lawsuit points out that the SACE-ish tag is not only the largest element of the graffiti-themed decor but also the "only element 'created' by a famous artist." It says Snow "carefully avoided any association with corporate culture and mass-market consumerism," of which McDonald's is the "epitome." The lawsuit claims Berreau originally asked McDonald's to remove the offending tag in June, but it "arrogantly refused to comply." She's now suing the company for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, unfair competition, and more. In addition to going against what Snow stood for, the lawsuit claims McDonald's' use of his art could hurt the value of his actual pieces, which have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.