In its judgment of 28 January 2026, the Paris Court of Appeal delivered a significant ruling at the intersection of contemporary street art and the fashion industry.
The dispute opposed the street artist known as ZEUS (G. C.) to a renowned couture house belonging to the LVMH group, concerning a T-shirt marketed in 2020 featuring the maison’s own name rendered in a “dripping” style.
The artist claimed copyright infringement based on his 2009 artwork Liquidated Google Black, arguing that the aesthetic treatment applied to the garments reproduced the essential characteristics of his creation.
The Court’s ruling provides a clear doctrinal reminder: while a work may be original and protected, the underlying aesthetic process does not thereby become proprietary.
G. C., born in 1977, is a French contemporary visual artist associated with the street art movement. Working internationally under the pseudonym ZEUS, he has developed since the mid-2000s a body of work centred on the critical reappropriation of iconic visual signs.
His project entitled Liquidated Logos consists in depicting well-known corporate logos, including luxury brands, whose letters appear to melt or liquefy through vertical dripping effects. The artistic intention, as articulated by the claimant, is to question the symbolic power of brands and to criticise overconsumption and advertising dominance.
This approach may be described as close to what is sometimes referred to as “free art”: a form of independent, critical artistic expression challenging commercial visual culture. It is not a legally defined movement, but rather an aesthetic and ideological posture rooted in urban artistic practices.
Among these works is Liquidated Google Black, initiated in 2009 and finalised in 2010. The artwork depicts the Google logo on a black background, with each coloured letter extended by irregular paint drips flowing vertically. The piece was exhibited in Miami in December 2010 by a New York gallery and sold for USD 7,000. Press coverage contributed to the recognition of both the series and the artist.
Importantly, the artist does not claim any trade mark rights over this aesthetic approach. The litigation strictly concerns the copyright protection of a specific pictorial artwork.
In July 2020, ZEUS discovered that a couture house was marketing a T-shirt, later followed by a sweatshirt, displaying its own name in multicoloured letters extended vertically in a dripping effect. The product description referred to “dripping paint-effect embroidery.”
The claimant argued that the garments reproduced the distinctive features of Liquidated Google Black: separated coloured letters, individualised melting effect, irregular downward drips, and a general impression of liquefaction.
Following a cease-and-desist letter that remained unanswered favourably, the artist initiated proceedings based on copyright infringement and, subsidiarily, unfair competition and parasitism.
At first instance, the Paris Judicial Court rejected the copyright claim but upheld parasitism and unfair competition. The couture house appealed.
The Court of Appeal confirmed the originality of Liquidated Google Black, identifying free and creative aesthetic choices in the treatment of the drips, their irregular length, the visual impression of progressive dissolution, and the critical artistic intention.
However, copyright infringement requires the reproduction of the original characteristics of the protected work.
The Court observed that the core feature of the artwork lies in the melting representation of the Google logo, including its specific colours. The contested garments did not reproduce that logo, nor its colour scheme, nor its conceptual message. Instead, they featured the couture house’s own name, in colours chosen independently.
The only similarity resided in the vertical extension of the letters through a dripping effect. The Court characterised this as a general aesthetic idea or visual technique widely used in street art and fashion.
Copyright protects the concrete expression of a work, not an artistic language or generic visual device.
Accordingly, infringement, including any alleged violation of moral rights, was dismissed.
The Court acknowledged that the Liquidated Logos project constituted an identifiable artistic and economic value, given the evidence of notoriety and sales.
Nevertheless, parasitism under French law requires proof of an intention to ride on the coattails of another party’s efforts in order to benefit from its investments or reputation.
In this case, the couture house demonstrated that the “dripping” embroidery stemmed from its own prior haute couture collection, characterised by multicoloured fringes. The contested garments were part of an internal creative continuity.
The Court therefore found no evidence of an intention to appropriate the claimant’s artistic value.
As regards unfair competition, no likelihood of confusion was established. Consumers could not reasonably believe in an artistic collaboration, particularly since the critical, anti-commercial dimension of ZEUS’s work was absent from the garments.
The first-instance finding of liability was overturned.
Conclusion
The Paris Court of Appeal’s decision draws a clear line: an artwork may be original and protected, yet the aesthetic process underlying it remains free.
Copyright does not grant exclusivity over an artistic current or a general visual technique, even where that technique is strongly associated with a particular artist in the street art scene.
The ruling thus reaffirms a fundamental principle of intellectual property law: protection attaches to individualised expression, not to ideas or stylistic codes circulating within the broader artistic community.
1 Paris Court of Appeal, Division 5 - Chamber 1, 28 January 2026, RG No. 24/06647
