so if i publish a copyrighted material in my Instagram, an i or the publisher responsible? ... since they are the ones with the prospect of profit...
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
#12So a couple different things here:
On one hand, it's funny that user "doedeere" thinks she had to give permission to the artist in order to use her picture in art. Gives off an air of entitlement if you ask me. On the other, I think it's a fair example of how little the average user is aware (read: doesn't give any attention to at all) of a free service's TOS and what is/isn't allowed, in addition the actual nature of posting stuff on the Internet. Need to educate yourselves, people (obviously not anyone browsing HN, but you know what I mean).
The fact that these pieces are selling for that much? Well, I'd say the suckers are the ones buying them. Maybe in 60 or so years they'll be considered something? Maybe not? Art's in the eye of the beholder, as it should be. If people want to wast...I mean spend that much on an enlarged screenshot, let them.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
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://w…
There's a tax shell-game aspect to modern art, as well. If you sell a piece of art and re-invest the proceeds into a substantially similar work of art (painting for a painting, sculpture for a sculpture, etc) you can avoid paying capital gains taxes.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/arts/design/tax-break-used...
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#14Copyright 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 explai…
Different legal systems have different approaches to the boundary between infringement and permissible usage of copyright works.
UK law - copyright infringement is generally based on the concept of substantial reproduction of the original. On the basis of the similarity between the two, there was substantial reproduction. The main issue in the Red Bus case was over proof of copying of the specific work (on the basis that the work in question had been created by numerous photographers over the years (so how can you prove the specific work of the claimant was copied?)).
US law - more flexible in the sense of avoiding infringement where the use of the work in a new light is sufficiently transformative. The linked article from the OP shows a good example in the combination of four separate shots to create a new work.
The question would be whether the Instagram reproductions are sufficiently transformative. Perhaps the reproduction of one photo on its own is not sufficiently transformative.
Another point of interest is that the person depicted in the photo may not be the owner of the copyright with a suitable cause of action (unless you're talking about selfies of course). I'm sure it would make for an interesting case!
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#15I find it fascinating that trivial modifications of photos qualify as 'transformative' and thus evade copyright. So it's okay for me to download the new Taylor Swift single, add some extra reverb, and start selling copies of it? Cool.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#16Now what if @doedeere sold her own 6 foot tall prints of the same image that fetched $90K? Would Richard Prince then sue her?
I highly doubt it.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#17so if i publish a copyrighted material in my Instagram, an i or the publisher responsible? ... since they are the ones with the prospect of profit...
This would fall under the DMCA. So long as the publisher took down the material when notified it was an infringement, following their DMCA procedures.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#18I find it fascinating that trivial modifications of photos qualify as 'transformative' and thus evade copyright. So it's okay for me to download the new Taylor Swift single, add some extra reverb, and start selling copies of it? Cool.
Many things in civil law come down to who can afford to spend more on lawyers.
Richard Prince probably has a brother or a fan who's a copyright lawyer willing to work pro-bono.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#19This seems like another example of a blatantly distorted copyright law protecting one class of creator while completely shafting the commoners.
Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k
#20baffling and understandably shocks ppl....but all that aside, wondering what kind of quality could the prints be really ? Res of instagram photos isn't that high right? even thru the API?