Don’t steal? No, don’t devalue art
Passing through Union Station, you’ll sometimes come across stores offering samples of their goods. The commuters understand that this is something the stores are offering as part of a marketing strategy, giving you a literal or figurative taste of what they have to sell before you commit to a purchase.
This practice has parallels in art, with galleries where you can view work prior to purchase (and some even have loan programs where you can borrow a work for a period of time to ensure that you want to make the full investment) and the dying music store and its listening booths/stations.
In these instances, most reasonable people understand the purpose of the sampling strategy being used, and what is considered an acceptable use of the system. Someone who takes enough bagel segments in one visit to make up a whole bagel is obviously abusing the system. Likewise, someone who serially borrows work from a gallery without any intention of a purchase is abusing the loan program.
When I compare the brick-and-mortar practice of samples with the myriad of ways people are using the internet for marketing and exposure, I notice two things. The first is that when physical samples are provided, the party offering the sample is not reprimanded for trying to protect against the offerings being abused. The second is that with physical samples, both the giver and receiver have a consistent and, typically, matching understanding of what constitutes abuse.
So why do neither of these things happen where the internet is concerned? Somehow, in internet land, artists are framed as either greedy or clueless for trying to prevent their work abusive uses of the work they put online. And now that the idea that “everyone is an artist” is not merely more widespread than the emergence of contemporary art, but it is also being met with mixed reactions.
I think it’s great that so many people are creating work. But the use of “artist” as a label for anyone who has every made anything is diluting the value of the creative, administrative and physical effort required to “make for a living”. Art and artist appreciation is already a problem, with art education continuing to be cut from public education in favour of the three Rs. But the devaluation of the artist is a serious issue which is showing itself in the way people are talking about their entitlements to the use and access to art.
What is more appalling to me is that I’m told that creators create because of reasons other than financial gain, as if that were a justification for creators not being paid for the work they do. Why is this logic not applied to chefs, lawyers, educators, social workers, or anyone else who has chosen a career for reasons other than income generation?
Tags: art, copyright, gapingvoid, internet, ryan taylor, visualcyRelated posts
By Julianna Yau
On June 18, 2008
At 11:19 pm
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So being creative is not the same as being an artist? I think I agree but do we have a term that fits the bill? I see artist being used to describe someone that creates from imagination. Knowledge workers, maybe. Someone that takes nothing and creates something new.
I think maybe part of the problem is the whole Anything Is Art!~ movement within artists circles themselves. When you hear about someones dirty and used bed being dumped in the center of a hall and applauded as art… well. I have seen some really not arty things claimed as art (and applauded as art) that most layman like myself figure: If you claim it, so it must be when it comes to art.
So, to us stupid not artists
What is art? Can you look at a creative work and say That Is Art. and That Isn’t Art. My art education was: If you say it is art and if you thought it was creative when making the art, than it is art. Maybe not good art, maybe not sell-able art, but art.
Could accepting anything as art have dulled the title of artist to the point that it has lost it’s meaning?
Benchmark definitions of a professional artist already exist. Granting agencies such as the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council For the Arts have definitions which are accepted in the arts community as the standard.
The question of “what is art?” is not a new one, and will probably be one of those philosophical inquiries which is never resolved. And I may get stoned for this, but I agree that part (but only part) of the problem is the state of contemporary art and the shift to valuing the artist’s communication skills rather than their mastery of a medium. Even within the realm of professional artists, the quality of work varies greatly. But I don’t believe this is a new phenomenon—it just seems that way because we only learn about the greatest of the great in history books.
Appreciation of fine art is something that must be cultivated, just like the appreciation of fine literature or cuisine. These things are shaped by what we are exposed to, and how they are framed.
“Somehow, in internet land, artists are framed as either greedy or clueless for trying to prevent their work abusive uses of the work they put online.”
Given I already know you are not pro-DRM, I’m wondering if you can give me examples so I can better understand this.
I’ve also noticed that there is a lot of confusion around the wide spectrum of technical measures, especially between those that help inform the audience of what the author considers an appropriate use (What us techies might have called metadata or rights management information, before the lawyers stepped in and started including unrelated things in the definitions), and those that attempt to control uses in inappropriate ways (IE: lock content to only work with “authorized” brands of technology, and/or apply locks to devices where the keys are held by someone other than its owner).