Richard Prince is currently testing the limits of fair use with his new series of photos of Instagram users he is selling for upwards of $90,000 A PIECE! The outrage at the theft has:
I am interested in all of the issues above even though I don't think highly of this particular series of his artistically (he's done more interesting stuff in the past) and know that many of the artists aren't interested in suing him and I doubt highly that his work is allowable under Instagram's terms of service or successfully meets the 4 factors of fair use: (1) purpose and character of use and it's commercial/non-commercial purpose; (2) nature of the copyrighted work; (3) amount and substantiality of portion used; and (4) effect of the use on the potential market for the copyrighted work.
What I find equally encouraging and discouraging is that while this is an interesting conversation to have, Richard Prince has money to burn and is able to take such a provocative stance because he simply doesn't care and can afford not to care.
He is an artist looking to stay topical and famous so his work can sell at a high price.
So he made his statement. Both at his expense and others. But only he really benefits in the end.
- a moral and labor dimension (artist makes money off of the work/talent of other artist without paying them),
- a critique of art and society dimension (the value in this artwork is not in the work itself but in the famous guy who made it who thrives off the publicity, using the notoriety to make the work valuable and can afford to defend himself in court),
- a legal dimension (does this rise up to fair use and do we need a small claims court for small time copyright owners since most artists are too poor to sue [at least compared to multimillionaire Prince]?) and
- a business dimension (will the Suicide Girls beat Richard Prince at his own game?).
I am interested in all of the issues above even though I don't think highly of this particular series of his artistically (he's done more interesting stuff in the past) and know that many of the artists aren't interested in suing him and I doubt highly that his work is allowable under Instagram's terms of service or successfully meets the 4 factors of fair use: (1) purpose and character of use and it's commercial/non-commercial purpose; (2) nature of the copyrighted work; (3) amount and substantiality of portion used; and (4) effect of the use on the potential market for the copyrighted work.
What I find equally encouraging and discouraging is that while this is an interesting conversation to have, Richard Prince has money to burn and is able to take such a provocative stance because he simply doesn't care and can afford not to care.
He is an artist looking to stay topical and famous so his work can sell at a high price.
So he made his statement. Both at his expense and others. But only he really benefits in the end.
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