Open Source Art

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.

Probably the most common definition that people have in mind regarding art is, as defined by Merriam-Webster:  "works created by artists : paintings, sculptures, etc., that are created to be beautiful or to express important ideas or feelings".

It is said of art, that it can bring joy and wonder into our lives.  And while many of us cannot claim to be able to create great works of art, we may enjoy viewing it, while we may even crave to posses it in one form or another.

The world we live in has created an environment where art is commoditized and the value of the artist is disregarded.  How did this happen and where do we go from here?

The word "art" has become a broad stroke of a brush, and understood to encompass many things, including dance, music, theatre, and books among others, and not simply paintings and sculpture.  For the purpose of this article, we will be focused more on paintings and sculpture. 

In days long past, art was often a "one off" proposition.  If there was a work of art, there was only one.  The original.  If you wanted that art for yourself, you bought it from the artist.  If you wanted a work of art from a particular artist, you commissioned the artist to create a work for you.

Back in those days, the artist was truly appreciated.  Artists were the real rock stars of early to mid civilizations.  If they produced something that was deemed desirable, they became sought after and commissioned for many works.  Their

creative skills were put to task and they rarely wanted for much.

Now keep that in mind when you think of great artists from history, such as Michelangelo.  There are likely very few people who don't know about the statue of David.  It was created in the beginning of the 16th century.  The story is interesting and more information about it can be found at the Wikipedia article on the statue of David.  For the purpose of this article, it's important to note that copyright was a concept that was not created until the 17th century, at which time it was only for printed works, because the printing press made it easy to copy and duplicate printed works, such as books.

The point is, if a year after the statue of David was completed, a new statue was created that was similar, but different from the statue of David, who would have been negatively affected?  Certainly not Michelangelo.  He had been paid for his work.  Certainly not the observer, as they could go see David when ever they wanted.  Certainly not the commissioner, as they possessed David.

So why did copyright become important?  Well, as exampled with the printing press, it became easy to copy and duplicate books.  The ability to do so, meant that SOMEONE ELSE could take a work of art, duplicate it, and then sell it for a profit to those who wanted the work, but did not have the ability to commission an artist.  Art became a commodity to be bought and sold, outside the scope of the artist themselves.  Of course, an artist who was witness to their original work being duplicated and sold, without themselves being compensated or possibly not being attributed, might rightly be offended.

Of course, this leads us to the psychology of "low hanging fruit".  If we only need to create a single piece of creative work, and then simply copy it as many times as necessary, in order to sell it to as many people as possible, for as long as possible, it is quite possibly much easier to do so than to create, or be commissioned for, a new piece of work, for each and every request.  This is not a slight on artists, this is human nature.  But what we see in the history of art, is that an artist is commissioned and paid for their work ONCE.  After that, the commissioner is the one who will profit ad infinitum, simply by virtue of being able to duplicate and distribute the copies.  THAT is why copyright was created and what copyright protects.  The RIGHT to COPY and inversely, to make it illegal to copy without a potential license fee.

That brings us to the current state of IP laws and art.  Even before our digital era, it became easier and easier to copy works of art.  Either by way of photography or learned skills and necessary tools to duplicate works of art.  To the extent that practically anyone can now digitize works of art and we can produce near identical (in all ways) copies of the original work, without having to commission the artist for a duplicate or re-work.

So where does this leave the art fan or the artist?  How can they benefit from open source?

Well, in the most simple, basic way, this is a transaction between an artist and a buyer.  With the technologies that we have today, it is easy enough to communicate, transact and deliver the art.  If the artist wishes to restrict the use of the art, aside from standard copyright law, which protects all by default, in copyright jurisdictions, an artist can deliver the art specifically stating copyright and year, or with a specific and appropriate copyleft or creative commons license which may be slightly less restrictive.  For example, the creative commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), while it does allow the buyer to share the art "as is", it requires that Attribution be given (which increases the exposure of the artist to people who may not know of them), but does not allow for derivatives to be shared and does not allow copies of the work to be sold, rather they can only be given freely.

There is nothing that requires an artist to give their work away for free, but there's also no motivation for a publisher or distributor of art to promote and sell an artist's work if they don't think they can make good money off it.

The main barrier to entry for an artist is the lack of exposure or portfolio.  And the harsh reality is, not everyone, sometimes very few people, actually like the art and would pay money for it.  And, compound that with the reality that people have limited entertainment resources, not a lot of people spend money on art.
 

But if an artist can get their work in the hands of someone that would not otherwise purchase it, the chances for greater exposure to those who WILL purchase it is greatly enhanced by open sourcing their work.

We do live in a world where chasing down copyright infringement is a costly endeavour.  A goal of any artist is unlikely to be a "one hit wonder".  Those are rare birds to begin with, and many artists that I know, simply create art for the love of creating art.  The ability to gain exposure and potentially gain a commission or sell some work is a bonus.

And the even greater value of open source remains, it is AN option.  An artist doesn't have to take the word of a person who claims Open Source is the way to go.  Using a few pieces of unsaleable pieces as an experiment, they can test out open source to see if it might add value to their brand.

To close, we will be presenting a number of Open Content arenas in greater detail in future articles.  For now, we will point people to check out the Open Content at the Getty Museum.