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How Etsy Sellers and Big Business Make Money on Public Domain Art (vice.com)
"Some people have figured out how to turn reselling public domain content into side hustles," reports Motherboard:
On Etsy, there are thousands of listings for downloadable prints and lithographs that are in the public domain. The concept is pretty simple: these merchants round up and download the most visually beautiful art in the public domain, and then sell prints on Etsy. But some of them don't even go that far and just sell digital files of the art. Then, the buyers can print out the prints at whichever size they want and use them as they please...
With that being said, there's also big companies like Walmart that are also trying to earn money off art in the public domain... Similarly, the Museum of Modern Art is selling "Red Canna" by Georgia O'Keeffe, which is now in the public domain, for $166.50 (on sale from $185). For the love of god, don't pay $166.50 for something you could download for free and print yourself for less than $16.
Of course, none of this is bad necessarily. The public domain exists in part so that people can give formerly copyrighted works new life -- sometimes an iconic painting simply needs to become a bedspread. But now that many new works are available for free, it's worth having a quick look around if you're thinking of buying vintage art. You might be able to get it for free elsewhere.
To be fair, the Museum of Modern Art is a non-profit -- and reportedly avoids all government funding.
With that being said, there's also big companies like Walmart that are also trying to earn money off art in the public domain... Similarly, the Museum of Modern Art is selling "Red Canna" by Georgia O'Keeffe, which is now in the public domain, for $166.50 (on sale from $185). For the love of god, don't pay $166.50 for something you could download for free and print yourself for less than $16.
Of course, none of this is bad necessarily. The public domain exists in part so that people can give formerly copyrighted works new life -- sometimes an iconic painting simply needs to become a bedspread. But now that many new works are available for free, it's worth having a quick look around if you're thinking of buying vintage art. You might be able to get it for free elsewhere.
To be fair, the Museum of Modern Art is a non-profit -- and reportedly avoids all government funding.
It’s public domain. That’s the whole point. Since when is this news that matters?
It is good, without qualification. Anyone who is aware of how many things are gone forever because it was made effectively illegal to preserve them wants a bunch of no-talent hacks keeping old works alive as much as possible.
I want more news about that modern work called Piss Christ
I don't know if it's art, but I like it.
That's the whole point of the public domain. It also doesn't change the fact that time has value.
The last time I needed to put together an icon set for a program, I wanted the icons all in the same theme and normalized with each other. The public domain has plenty to offer and is an especially great way to pretty up something that wasn't even going to be sold or find its way past about 10 people. There is simply no point to paying for art and not using place-holders in such a use case.
Yet I was more than willing to pay someone else to spend the time to find art in the right style, put it all together, and scale everything to look like an actual icon set.
Absolutely no part of that process is difficult to do, all simple easy straight forward stuff.
But it took a few hours which I preferred to spend on other things instead. So it was well worth the value to me.
Using psychological AI algorithms and AB testing, shitty websites like Motherboard hijack the nervous system of the normal person to hook into the outrage dopamine cycle.
For god's sake, don't spend your mental energy on this garbage when you could be doing something useful.
The ones never to be seen again and sometimes potentially lost to time forever are a worse issue.
Any company that puts their things in to open, public domains after a reasonable period is fine with me and whatever others do is up to them.
I have a lot of respect for those that do. I do it myself despite being able to make mad money off some art and programming. Sometimes even anonymously because I would rather they stand on their own two feet than be associated with past work.
Sometimes you just gotta make something for the Greater Good.
One thing that is especially sad is seeing some digital works go to waste, being left to rot on a HDD, potentially unused. That saddens me much much more given the potential for re-use.
This is even more hurtful from a film CGI assets perspective. They pretty much never see the light of day outside some companies drives.
Blade Runner 2049 assets in particular
That city scene from 8 minutes on. God DAMN. (I'm also madder most of it got covered by stupid smog for some "vision" of Earth being a helldump)
This likely won't even be used for a third film given the sales, never mind released.
So much work just left to rot. Untouched. Hell, most times you don't even get to see these behind-the-scenes of the rendering process!
Like posting on /., right? Yeesh.
Of course, then I have to spend time figuring out printing options, determining if the printer/printing company supports the file in a lossless format or if I have to first convert it to something like jpeg, then determining if compression artifacts will show in the print, then I have to deal with color profiles, then I have figure out framing options and get it framed...
Or, I could pay someone else $150 to figure out all this stuff and get a nice printed and framed image shipped directly to me in the size I want.
Sometimes convenience is worth paying for.
Good Al-phas gave the world things like free libraries and the public domain- be-tas, by definition, cannot understand why free is 'fair'- cos be-tas fall for all the evil al-pha propaganda mechanisms.
So slashdot, 100% aimed at the less intelligent be-tas, uses implied calumnies (slanderous propaganda) to stir up be-ta resentment at the very concepts that enhanve be-ta existence. Just as Orwell highlighted in Animal Farm and 1984.
Orwell had vast experiences of advertising and the BBC, and knew this subject inside out as a result. The psy-op methods used to convert the be-ta mindset. While evil al-phas cast Orwell's work as warnings against stalinist like societies, they were in reality descriptions of where the West was heading if unfettered BBC tactics continued. And when the BBC assisted Tony Blair to take supreme power in the UK (today all major institues in Britain are under blairite control) the Orwell nightmare prediction came true.
Pay attention to neo-liberal outlets like slashdot, and you'll witness continuous attacks on things like the Public Domain, and free software. The worship of big corporations and iz-real is the church of slashdot. This societal form was witnessed in the run up to WW1 and WW2. Slashdot is part of the team laying the ground for war on Iran, followed by war on Russia and China- conflicts that will wipe out the majority of the Human race.
PS na-zi Germany was a matriarchical society at the bottom and middle with a massive SJW character. The 'extremes' of the regime were hidden from and not apparent to the majority population- a population that supported the regime for its SJW policies.
The current conditioning of the West includes a massive pro-war shift which even the worst sh-ills here cannot deny. Yet true social justice and pro-war should be on the opposite sides of the spectrum.
So expect Slashdot to continue to say things like "profiting from the Public Domain is evil". All rabble-rousing vicious nonsenses designed to weaponise hard-of-thinking be-tas.
I blame the Copyright-Natsys for this article.
and make money on it ::shocked face::
A good quality print costs - heavy acid free paper, non-fugitive ink, high resolution image which was most likely created by a professional photographer or scanned by someone that really knows what they are doing. It may cost more if it is still under copyright but even a public domain image is going to cost if you want a good quality print. If Walmart and the Museum of Modern Art ever sell the same public domain image, pretty sure I can tell you which one will still look good ten years. Sometimes, you do get what you pay for.
They didnt get rich with Mickey Mouse cartoons. Snow white, cinderella, pinnochio, the little mermaid etc etc etc. Thats where the bulk of their wealth came from.
The biggest media empire in the world is built on the back of public domain.
Which makes it all the more of an insult that they were the ones to abolish it.
To be fair, that sentence has as much relevance to the story as a frog on crutches.
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
And? I've bought new KJV Bible's at dollar stores. So what? King James' translators were unavailable for comment, being long dead.
The whole point of public domain is that you can use it, you can publish it, you can do what you like with it.
I've been painting since 2017 and have made quite a few "real" copies of old masters paintings. It's great practice and you learn a little with each one. They're all hanging on my wall but I probably would let go of a few if someone wanted one. At least you would get a real painting and not something that came out of a printer.
From where I sit though, not many people are interested in buying paintings these days. Heck you rarely even see family pictures on the wall anymore, let alone a painting. I think it's unfortunate this art form is going the way of the dodo bird.
This article talks about Public Domain Art. My question is *WHERE* ?