Medium Voice

I want to first start by saying I am not going to argue the social or moral reasons why someone should not take another artist’s work and use it without permission as I am sure most readers already understand that, I am going to instead talk about the interesting legal issues this controversy raises.

Banksy is a famous artist known for his street art. Shot Dead in the Head is a clothing company out of Britain which started to sell Banksy’s art on tshirts. As Cottonable has pointed out this company set the price of the work and will donate all royalties to charities. As far as I can tell royalties doesn’t necessarily mean all profit. Not only that but Banksy’s anonymity is a key element in his popularity. I doubt he will come forward to stop this because in doing so he will have to reveal his identity. I do not know if it is possible to maintain copyright ownership of one’s work from a anonymous identity. If anyone knows for sure please leave a comment.

Source: Cottonable

The same technology behind Google Earth is now being used to view famous paintings. Google’s technology which allows users to zoom from space into a person’s back yard, now will also allow users to zoom into every brush stroke of some of the world’s greatest paintings. To make sure every detail is viewable, images of the paintings will be taken at 14 trillion pixels. It will be great to see all parts of the painting at a level most people can’t see even in person because they don’t let you get that close. I also think this technology will be used in many art colleges to teach about the painters.

Source: PCMag

Blogs to the rescue was the cry when Hot Topic started selling a shirt that looked very similar to a design created by Seibei. After Seibei pointed this out on their blog, other blogs picked up on the story and defended Seibei. Most seemed angry at what appeared to be a very very close design with many calling it a flat out ripoff. In the end Hot Topic was able to get in contact with Seibei and work out a resolution both could live with. Hot Topic would continue to unload the current test batch of shirts and would purchase no more of the design.

All this brings up the idea of how powerful blogs are now. Could blogs be the savior to small time artists? Would the local news have picked up this story? I doubt it. So where to turn? Obviously if the blogosphere gets behind an issue they can command a powerful force. Would Hot Topic stop purchasing the shirts without the blogs’ help? Who knows. But most can agree the blogs made a statement loud enough to be heard in the Hot Topic offices.