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$5M In Torrented Files Presented As Art

Posted by timothy on from the think-about-the-street-value-of-this-mountain dept.

ideonexus snips thus from Wired: "The Art 404 gallery is currently exhibiting a piece by Manuel Palou called '5 Million Dollars, 1 Terabyte' which is a 'sculpture' consisting of a 1 TB external hard drive containing $5,000,000 worth of illegally downloaded files. The hard drive is displayed on a pedestal at the gallery." Adds ideonexus: "There is a PDF of the files stored on the device with links to the torrents." I'd like this to be an exhibit at every trial in which gigantic money damages are claimed for copyright infringement.

2 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Two questions: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    First, so the harddrive does not contain files, it contains one file with links to torrent files?

    No, the hard-drive contains the actual files in question, the PDF is a separate listing of what files have been downloaded to the drive, and their value IIRC (I can't access the PDF file without my browser crashing as I'm at work and this computer only has Adobe Reader).

    Second, THAT'S ART?!

    Moreso than most things passing as art these days.
    This exhibit actually aims to raise a valid point about piracy.
    By highlighting how trivial it is to cause $5million of "damage" (by certain definitions of that word) and how little effect it actually has, it's supposed to get people questioning the way we deal with infringers.

  2. Re:This is art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I wish people would stop calling "statements", "art".
    Art is about aesthetics.

    While some art makes a statement, not all art does (for example the mona-lisa), and not everything that makes a statement is art (for example PETA rallies).

    A commodity hard drive containing files, is not art. It can (depending on how it's used) be a statement.