Bachand c. Mural, 2025 QCCQ 3060
2025-07-21
Read full decision. Summary prepared by Alan Macek:
In 2018, he created a large-scale mural on the wall of a building located on Marie-Anne Street in Montreal. In 2024, he found that most of his mural was now inaccessible or destroyed due to the presence of a new construction against the wall where it was located. ... The erection of the building which hides the greater part of the mural and makes it permanently inaccessible in its entirety certainly represents a deformation, a mutilation or a modification of this work. ... All the conditions required by the Copyright Act to conclude that Mr. Bachand's moral rights in this mural have been violated are therefore present. ... Mural itself did not participate in the distortion, mutilation and modification of Mr. Bachand's mural. However, through the contract concluded with Yuliv, it was it that put in place the conditions required for the mural to be legally altered by the owner of the building. It must therefore bear responsibility towards Mr. Bachand for the violation of his moral rights. (based on a translation)