This guy is selling other people's Instagram pics for $100,000 a pop
In what must surely be some kind of elaborate money laundering scheme, "artist" Richard Prince is selling print-outs of screengrabs of other people's Instagram photos as art.
On display at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, the shots (which come replete with a comment from the "artist" himself) are also on sale for around $100,000 each.
Neither the original photographers nor the people in the photos will get so much as a dollar out of Dickie Prince, though; he has fought and won lawsuits for "appropriating" existing works before on the basis of fair use.
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/internet/this-guy-is-selling-other-people-s-instagram-pics-for-100-000-a-pop-1294671?src=rss&attr=all
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Which are two different matters, legally: artistic works and mechanical patents.
In any event, after reading Larry Lessig's "Free Culture" which is, by the way, free to read download, I'm of the mind that things we create need to be free for the next person to use, reuse, reinterpret, fold into their expression.
The patent system was, in fact, design to REQUIRE this: the government will grant limited protection but only if you fully divulge your invention, largely so that others might use your ideas for furthering technology.
The other part of me feels like our creative works are like our children and we should be able to make money from them.
I'm kidding. But I would be upset if someone used something I created, but not if it was something I posted on the Internet.
If I post on the Internet, it's out there, I'm not an idiot.
