English
Japanese
Spanish
The fun and games are truly over now, crypto art has got serious on many levels and the platforms need to decide what they want to be. A few points before I get started;
- I don’t think any of the crypto art platforms claimed to be decentralised at least in terms of who can upload
- Ethereum is tool open to everyone a smart contact is a piece of property
- Copyright is subjective in art
- The BAE is a curated platform
Right off the bat if you want a free and open platform go make one yourself or use opensea although they still have terms.
Lets talk copyright, how does it work? In art it can be extremely complex for example look at Andy Warhol he painted many people and brand logos and profited off them. So how did he get away with it? Well when painting a brand logo or character like superman there are a few things that need to be considered; are you creating damage to the brand with your artwork? Can the thing you’ve created be a market replacement for the original.
So, as DC wasn’t creating artworks in the style of superman that Warhol was both these answers are no for Andy Warhol’s work. It also creates no damage as it is created only with a positive spin on the iconic character. That’s not to say that bands won’t sue even if the answer to both the above is no, but it is very unlikely that anyone would bother suing an artist for this. 1st off it is really bad PR and second they won’t make any money as artist are normally broke and who cares about a $100 or even $10k 1 off artwork sale it isn’t worth the lawsuit.
So that’s the law as far as creating your own version of a brand or characters. But what about transforming someone’s image that has copyright and is someone else’s. Well the law in the uk is that it has to be highly trans-formative. The more you’ve done to it the harder it is to claim for the copyright owner. But this is subjective the argument will often come down to is it a market replacement for the original. But some people just might not be happy that you have used their image and sue anyway.
This one is much more complex and really the end choice lies with those that own the platform as they are the ones who will get into trouble. It is pretty easy to sit back and complain that a platform is banning your work but you’re not the one who will get into legal trouble. It is important to try to see both sides of the debate in this.
All the above is just my thoughts lets get some perspective and look at a real-life case study into an pretty successful artist that shall we say has a lack of respect of copyright- Russell young
Russell is a uk born artist who I have had the pleasure of working with twice. The story im about to relay doesn’t end well for the gallery that Russell showed in.
Below are a few of Russell’s works… lets talk about his process;
Step one find an image
Step two print that image really big and stretch it on canvas
Step three diamond dust it a sell it for 20k +
No joke he still does this and sells a lot to this day. If you’ve been to an artfair you’ve seen one of his works or someone that has copied him.
Can you believe you owns the rights to all these photos wow!. He must be like 80 years old to have captured all of these… hears the thing he doesn’t own them he just uses them as the copyright holder cant be found or cant be bothered to sue him. Did I mention that these sell for 20k. Russell isn’t upfront about not owning the images he uses in fact without saying it he implies he has usage rights. He does not and here’s the scoop. Back in the early 2010s Russell had a show at scream art gallery I happened to be interning there at the time so I had a front row seat to all of this. Russell decided to show the below image for a sex Pistols concert the short of it is scream was sued big time a few million in fact as they had the artwork on show they were responsible for it Not the artist. Here’s the link to the story https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/heres-what-happens-a-judge-416599 if you want to read more.
So in finishing what am I saying; copyright and how it is enforced is up to the platforms, we are private compnays and we can do whatever we want with our platforms. Im not saying that we are link facebook etc we are totally different they by law are meant to be free and open it is why they benefit from laws that makes them impossible to sue based on user content. But try arguing that a digital art platform is a form of communication to the FCC or any government body, I think they will laugh you out the door.
So what does this change, nothing just food for thought we are now a completely curated platform got to cover our butt. My advice to any other platforms reading this don’t approve risky artists in the first place Ask for high rez files I mean really high rez if someone can send you a 300 dpi tiff, bmp or psd you know they created the artwork at least it is a dam good indication.
P.S anit nothing wrong with a bit of photomosh as long as it is cool and original.
