When a street artist paints a mural on a wall, who owns the artwork?

By Saturday evening, the answer could be "someone else," at least in the case of "Slave Labour," a work of renowned artist Banksy.

The mural showed up on the wall of a Poundland discount store in North London's Haringey neighborhood during the queen's Jubilee last May. It depicts a young boy sewing British flags and was thought to be a commentary on sweatshop labor, something that hit home in the working class neighborhood.

"It represents the struggle of the community in general," one resident told the BBC.

And it was something positive for locals.

"I felt a twinge of pride that something other than cheap tat was drawing people to our high road.

"It brought much-needed positive attention to Wood Green instead of the usual ugly image often spread in the news and on Twitter," Rachella Sinclair wrote in Tottenham & Wood Green Journal.

But last week, residents noticed some work was being done around the 4-foot-by-5-foot mural, with scaffolding and a tarpaulin put up.

"This morning I had a sneaky look under said tarpaulin to find it had been removed," wrote blogger AntK on Harringay Online. "I spoke to the guy rendering the wall and he said that after repeated attempts to gouge it out, the owner of the Poundland building had decided to take steps to 'preserve' it."

The preservation seems to have taken the piece to Miami, where "Slave Labour" has turned up in the catalog of Fine Art Auctions in Miami. It's expected to go under the gavel on Saturday with a price range of $500,000 to $700,000 as part of a collection of "Modern, Contemporary and Street Art."