Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
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Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#2Copyright law is strange and inconsistent. Contrast this story with this one ("red bus case"[0]):
http://aandalawblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/red-bus-suggests-co...
So at one end of the spectrum literally taking someone's photo and selling them without permission is NOT copyright infringement, and at the other end taking your own photo then altering it a certain way IS copyright infringement. Someone will have to explain that one to me...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Island_Collections_Ltd_...
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#3It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos.
What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're available for free on the internet.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#4Well...yes...this headline manages to be both true but a little off-point. By posting your photos on Instagram, you have definitely given a third-party (Instagram) the right to make copies and distribute your photos...yet, the photo still belongs to you, Instagram is quick to point out [1].
But the reselling of photos as described here is not particular to Instagram. It involves an artist who reappropriates them for artistic purposes (similar to parody)...he could've done this with any photo or off of any service...so this concept isn't even particular to the Internet and the digital age.
However, such examples as the OP are always good for discussion about "what is art?"...it's not so much the actual work (measured in sweat and hours) put into it, but the skill in repurposing it, and in the reputation of the artist...you have to build up quite the career of actually interesting work before you can get to the point where a rich tycoon will pay you $250K to splatter mud patterns on one of his walls. It'd be interesting to see a lawsuit come out of this...I'm guessing the artist could make a good case that the original photographers would never be able to raise $90K for their images...people only pay for it because it is work that he noticed/curated/altered.
[1] http://blog.instagram.com/post/38252135408/thank-you-and-wer...
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#5It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos. What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're available for free on the internet.
For $90K, no less!
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#6It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos. What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're available for free on the internet.
I had the same thought. This story is about a transaction between charlatans and fools. It's a business that has a long and storied history.
Anyone could hunt down an Instagram post that spoke to them and have a very high quality large print reproduction of it for a couple orders of magnitude less than $90k. Stuff like this is at the root of my whole beef with modern art. It's much more about being clever than talent or dedication or anything else. I could spend a lifetime trying to imitate Rembrandt and never get there. I could knock this Richard Prince stunt out before lunch if I started now (it's currently 10:13 AM CST here in Kansas City).
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#7It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos. What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're available for free on the internet.
Thats equivalent of saying why are people painting, selling and buying pictures that a 2 year old could draw.
Thats not how art world works :).
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#8Now what if @doedeere sold her own 6 foot tall prints of the same image that fetched $90K? Would Richard Prince then sue her?
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#9It doesn't really bother me that much that someone else could sell your Instagram photos. What bothers me is that someone else would buy them, when they're available for free on the internet.
I had the same thought. This story is about a transaction between charlatans and fools. It's a business that has a long and storied history. Anyone could hunt down an Instagram post that spoke to them and have a very high quality large print reproduction of it for a couple orders of magnitude less than $90k. Stuff like this is at the root of my whole beef with modern art. It's much more about being clever than talent…
I don't think it's quite accurate to call the participants charlatans / fools. The pieces are presented as clearly ripped off of Instagram, the last bit of the comment thread preserved along with one of the artist's. The people buying the prints know exactly what they are, it's difficult to maintain the position that they're getting ripped off.
Art's a weird world. White canvases have sold for many millions:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-14/why-pay-15-...
What you're actually buying when you purchase a piece of art is bound to be subjective, as the enjoyment of visual art is much more individual than, say, a video game. There are games that blur the lines of what makes up a game, and people still buy them, play them, and enjoy them.
Also, there's plenty of ways to enjoy a game without ever playing it. When I was a kid, I would buy strategy guides for games I never played or owned. I'll watch people playing games that I would never play myself. If someone like John Romero or Sid Meier made something like a Pac-Man clone, I might buy it.
So it's easy for me to see why someone would buy these Instagram shots. There's something about the curation and attention being given to them by the artist that makes it a more interesting experience to look at than if you just took a screenshot and saved it in a folder or printed it out. The artist isn't just producing visuals, he's also applying a more cultivated taste to 'what' he's producing. He's only got so much time to make things, what he chooses to make tells as much of a story as the skills he used to make it.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#10Since he's not getting model releases he might still be breaking privacy law.