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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

#41
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, it's almost the same (but not quite exactly) as someone posting code on stack overflow, and developers using and relying on that code for their job. The idea of what part of information is owned and what is shared is a concept that fascinates and bewilders me consistently. Art has all these emotional attachments to it, this personal affect, and not many stop to think that for some people, code - even mathemati…

Nah, there's a pretty big difference (mentally) between SO and Instagram. You put your code on SO with the intention of giving it to someone else, potentially many others. That's the entire point in SO and it's pretty clear from the start that that's what you're doing there. You put your photos on Instagram so you can show them to your friends. Instagram is a storage space for your photos. When someone looks at your…

While this may be instinctive to you, it is not necessarily instinctive to an artist, or someone with no socio-normal intuition.

Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k

#42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike you, he has won a lawsuit to that effect. Also, he has sold similar appropriations for far more money, so there's a framing effect as to what they're worth.

He won that lawsuit because that work was transformative. I think it could be argued that his Instagram pieces are not.

But also, in that case, the copyrighted work was registered, allowing statutory damages. It's unlikely that these instagrams are registered, which reduces the potential award. In addition, there's likely no actual damages in terms of lost sales.

I think that he's got a pretty good chance that he'd win based on the history, and lower damages in the case of a loss. (Not registered, not otherwise commercial work, no potential loss of sales for original)

Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k

#43
post #4

Well...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…

> 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. So why is this legal in the case of photographs, yet sampling (in music) remains illegal?

The legal crux seems to rely on if a significant amount of the original work has changed or been put into different context that sets it apart from the original work.

Examples being Vanilla Ice vs Bowie & Queen, and Girltalk/Illegal Art [1]

[1] http://illegal-art.net/girltalk

Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k

#44
post #22

The buyers aren't spending 90k for a print of an Instagram, they're spending 90k for Richard Prince's signature on the bottom. Richard Prince could appropriate anything at this point, make a very limited edition, sign it, and mint money. You couldn't, I couldn't, but he can.

Under your theory, assuming I was famous, could I make a copy of a movie, sign the DVD copy and sell it for $100 free and clear? I don't think I'd get away with that, so why should he?

He put some emojis on it, that's why.

Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k

#45
post #4

Well...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…

Actually this is nothing like paradoy. And I suspect with a better lawyer he would lose hide "transformative" case.

Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k

#46
post #4

Well...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…

To me, it's almost the same (but not quite exactly) as someone posting code on stack overflow, and developers using and relying on that code for their job. The idea of what part of information is owned and what is shared is a concept that fascinates and bewilders me consistently. Art has all these emotional attachments to it, this personal affect, and not many stop to think that for some people, code - even mathemati…

Based on stack overflow's terms of use and instagram's they are not the same. Stack overflow's terms say you give stack overflow and others the right to copy and use the content. Instagram's terms say you only give permission to Instagram. And well this makes sense as the purpose of these sites differ. If you want to share photos that people can use elsewhere go to a site like flicker were you can easily attach a Creative Commons license.

Re: Your Instagram photos aren’t really yours: Someone else can sell them for $90k

#47
post #17
post #11

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...

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.

but my point is, what if instagram sold a pint before they got the DMCA?
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