Anyone that sells other people’s photos without permission is a dick. The people who buy them are probably dicks also.
I am slightly puzzled on this one. So, he could just take a picture, copy etc of let’s say Mickey Mouse, or of Disney’s Instagram / twitter account. Print it & sell it for 100K & Disney wouldn’t consider it stealing & wouldn’t sue the pants of him?
Is it possible that whether it is / is not stealing is determined by the resources available to the injured party to argue in court for monetary compensated for any perceived damages.
Maybe the real art in this case is choosing the right people to copy from?
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Talentless shit!
Isn’t this a bit like Jeff Koons and the String of Puppies photo that he made a sculpture of (albeit modified). Usually a court case like this is often good publicity
It would never be stealing, but rather copyright infringement if it were a violation. In your proposed scenario, Disney’s lawyers would sue, probably not only on copyright grounds but also on trademark grounds. Even if they had any likelihood of losing, they’d still pursue it for the billable hours. I’d guess that they would win if there isn’t any “artistic” addition to the work that would constitute a transformative change.
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Its still a ddouchebag move, he could give the original photographers a 10% finders fee from the profit of selling the photos and it wouldn’t affect him.
You can’t charge a person with theft if they haven’t taken something away from you; if you still retain ownership of the original item, the case will be thrown out of court.
But in your example, Disney would still sue the pants off you - for illicit copying, not theft, and the actual charges would be things like “copyright infringement” and “trademark dilution” and possibly “aggravated mopery and dopery”. Their lawyers are too smart to charge you with theft in court, because if they did they’d lose the case, but they’d certainly tell the public you were a pirate and a thief.
People often say “steal” or “pirate” when they actually mean “copy”. It’s just an exaggerated idiom, like the way I’ll say I “nuked” a sandwich when I actually mean I heated it in a microwave oven. Public relations outfits, such as those employed by Disney, spend a lot of money to encourage these kinds of idioms because they hope to confuse people into thinking that punishments for illicit copying should be at least as harsh as punishments for stealing.
Welcome to the 21st century global plutocracy. You’ve figured out one of the rules already!
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You philistines! Don’t you even know a wealthy curator, gallery owner or artist to point at your work from upon high and impregnate it with value!?
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Part of me wonders how many of those 8 actually bought it. And how many people thought about Apple’s refund policy. – Which as I recall involves some crooked math and rationalizations. That make it so instead of all the money simply being restored to where it was in the first place. The app’s creator having to pay Apple its cut. – And decided to ‘buy’ it in spite so they could just return it and force the creator to lose money to Apple. Which if I remember correctly, in this case would mean paying Apple $400 for each person that did it.
I’m note sure if it is or is not theft, legally, but it definitely is a form of plagiarism.
A few years back he reprinted The Catcher in the Rye in its entirety and put his name on it. Copies now sell for about as much as an actual first edition Catcher.
I understand that art is subjective, but… really? This guy must have a reputation right up there with the Renaissance masters, otherwise I don’t see how he can essentially say “Give me $100,000 for nothing, please” and actually succeed.
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Did this last fall in the same gallery
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While I despise what he did with the instagram photos, for some reason I LOVE what he did with Catcher in the Rye.
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IF this happens to come to LA I’m going to copy each of them and stand out on the corner and sell them for 100 dollars and give it all to the artists.
Honest answer? Because the art world is kind of insane.
Wait… some people went to prison for running web sites where other people post links to video files where someone re-photographed hollywood movies.
The people who run those web sites usually made some profit with advertising, approximately in the same range as selling $100K “artworks” would get you.
By that logic, not only Mr. Prince, but also the people who run the gallery where he got to exhibit his “artworks” should go to prison for a couple of years.
When did “equality before the law” become so twisted that relatively minor, unknown “artists” are privileged over owners of internationally successful internet startups?
I mean, minor, unknown artists used to be the likeable underdogs…
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