As many as 5,000 treasures that were looted from the former kingdom of Benin will be digitally reunited over the next two years. The ambitious international project is spearheaded by the Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg with the support of the Benin Dialogue Group. Continue reading
It seems a month doesn’t go by without another artist being accused of copyright infringement. This time it is the American artist Richard Prince. US art news site Hyperallergic reports that Gagosian Gallery, who represents the artist, has received cease and desist letters accusing Prince of the illegal use of a photograph titled Rastafarian Smoking a Joint, Jamaica shot by the photographer Donald Graham. It is believed that the letters, sent by lawyers on behalf of Graham, forbid the exhibition and distribution of the work in question and any other materials containing unauthorized reproductions of Graham’s work. Continue reading
Author: Tom Broadhurst
Last century I heard Paul Goldstein’s then provocative view – that the Internet and digital revolution would be the death of copyright. Others have said similar things but this decease of copyright has not happened – copyright still robustly thrives in the digital arena and is vital in the visual arts. In 2011 an estimated £70M of licensing revenue went to writers and artists (see p. 5 of the report ‘An economic analysis of copyright‘). Continue reading
