Sunday, May 25, 2008

What gives you the right?

I am not going to name and shame, but I visited a gallery today that is selling prints of Asian art for about L$250.

The art is NOT the work of the seller.

I noticed it when I went to inspect the frog picture, which I thought was rather cute. The description says:

Hoji, Frog
19th Century - Ink on Paper
For Sale: L$250


What gives you the right?


There are quite a few of these for sale, textures merely found and uploaded by the seller; and even though the artists are presumably long dead, who made this person the authorized re-seller?

Why charge that kind of money for what ANYONE can upload for a mere L$10?!
It's fucking outrageous. I know it's a fairly common practice in SL (stealing art from the web, uploading it, and re-selling it for a higher cost), but it... still... pisses... me... off.


(*The person in question also sells prints of their actual work on the upper level of this gallery, at around L$1800 a pop, which is MORE exploitation, since she can sell an INFINITE number of them -- but that's another topic entirely.)

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