Who owns street art?

Who owns public art illegally placed onto private buildings? A recent debate arose when famous Banksy work in London entitled "Slave Labour" was ripped out of the side of a building, shipped across the Atlantic, and put up for auction with an estimated final price of over half a million dollars.

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  1. Slave Labour
  2. A rat is painted next to a section of wall that was removed and shipped to the U.S., in north London
  3. A man walks past a mural by street artists Stik and Thierry Noir in East London
  4. A man walks past a mural by street artists Stik and Thierry Noir in East London
  5. Member of "Damn the Troika" movement works on a mural in Lisbon
  6. Municipal workers clean up debris next to a mural of a bulldozer at the gypsy settlement of Puerta de Hierro outside Madrid
  7. A pedestrian walks past a mural on the side of a pet store in Somerville, Massachusetts
  8. A restaurant worker sits under street art on a back street in East London
  9. A man walks past street art in east London, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. The clock is ticking down to Dec. 21, the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, and from China to California to Mexico, thousands are