[HN Gopher] Droit de Suite
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       Droit de Suite
        
       Author : brk
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2023-04-25 11:52 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
        
       | lordnacho wrote:
       | Why would you need a special law for this? Put it in the sales
       | contract. Football clubs do the same when they sell a young
       | player.
        
         | dan-robertson wrote:
         | There are cases where there are time limits on certain kinds of
         | contracts. Maybe this would limit such a contract. I don't
         | really know though.
        
         | axlee wrote:
         | Because laws are there to fix asymmetries in negotiation power
         | between parties. As you can imagine, artists and art
         | collectors/galleries are not really on the same level.
        
         | jsdwarf wrote:
         | A sales contract is always a bilateral agreement between two
         | clubs. Hence you cannot stipulate that the selling club will
         | earn a share in _ALL_ future sales of the player. Only a law
         | could do that.
        
       | oh_sigh wrote:
       | I'd love to see this x-ray:
       | 
       | > The painter Salvador Dali had a particular attachment to
       | Millet's The Angelus, and he also had a premonition about it. He
       | saw in the shape of its figures and the hue of its light a scene
       | of mourning, not just work and prayer. This was not a widely
       | accepted interpretation until, sure enough, the Louvre had the
       | painting examined by x-ray, and the outline of a child's coffin
       | could be seen under the basket of potatoes. The steeple in the
       | distance, too, was a late addition.
        
         | jccooper wrote:
         | https://www.religionenlibertad.com/blog/57334/angelus-jeanfr...
         | 
         | It's kinda there, if you look closely. Quite noisy, though.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | bigmattystyles wrote:
       | Isn't this what some NFTs tried to do in contract form, the
       | minter would in perpetuity get a percentage of resales?
        
         | hammyhavoc wrote:
         | Sure, but once created, a painting isn't burning resources by
         | just existing, nor is the provenance of a piece of art nor a
         | contract.
         | 
         | But y'know what these crowds are like, one week it's "crypto
         | gud. invest in me startup that uses NFTs or ERC-20 tokens to
         | XYZ", the next it's "nobody here ever supported NFTs or crypto,
         | I don't know what you're talking about". Selective memory
         | abounds, throw around buzzwords like "rentseeking" like the
         | company they dev SaaS for isn't doing that.
        
           | bigmattystyles wrote:
           | Oh, I'm not endorsing it, was just noting the similarity.
        
       | jgeada wrote:
       | Basically rent seeking behavior, expecting perpetual payment for
       | work completed in the past (aka passive income)
       | 
       | Why stop at paintings, what renders a painting more deserving of
       | payments in perpetuity for the author over, say a chair or some
       | piece of furniture. Or a car, or any of the other myriad of goods
       | people make.
        
         | basisword wrote:
         | >> Basically rent seeking behavior, expecting perpetual payment
         | for work completed in the past (aka passive income)
         | 
         | Sounds like most SaaS companies.
         | 
         | >> Why stop at paintings, what renders a painting more
         | deserving of payments in perpetuity for the author over, say a
         | chair or some piece of furniture. Or a car, or any of the other
         | myriad of goods people make.
         | 
         | The fact that those things can be replicated and/or mass
         | produced? If it was a one-off handcrafted car or piece of
         | furniture then I agree, it should be covered under the same
         | law.
        
           | mcculley wrote:
           | >> Basically rent seeking behavior, expecting perpetual
           | payment for work completed in the past (aka passive income)
           | 
           | > Sounds like most SaaS companies.
           | 
           | Most SaaS companies have perpetually recurring costs of their
           | own (e.g., storage, compute, bandwidth, security updates).
        
             | egypturnash wrote:
             | Most artists have perpetually recurring costs too: rent,
             | subscriptions to digital tools, food, etc.
        
               | mcculley wrote:
               | Indeed. An artist should set the price of a piece sold
               | with these costs in mind.
        
               | clipsy wrote:
               | An art buyer should negotiate the purchase price with
               | _droit de suite_ in mind.
        
               | mcculley wrote:
               | Certainly, if the transaction takes place in a
               | jurisdiction where it applies.
        
         | blargey wrote:
         | People need land. Nobody needs that one painting.
         | 
         | It's pretty clearly a way to allow the artist (or their heirs,
         | in the event of their passing) to benefit from their works
         | being labeled Valuable long after they parted with it for a
         | commodity price, instead of solely profiting some "art
         | investor". The exact opposite of serving the smarmy capitalist
         | class that your label of "rent seeking" conjures.
        
         | clipsy wrote:
         | > Basically rent seeking behavior, expecting perpetual payment
         | for work completed in the past (aka passive income)
         | 
         | So just like copyright, then?
        
         | llsf wrote:
         | Are all rent seeking bad by essence ?
         | 
         | For art, I see it more as a way for the artist to focus on his
         | art, and allowing to sell (even cheap) his art, and still be
         | rewarded (e.g. 5%) each time his art changes hand if it does
         | hold value.
         | 
         | It does not have to be in perpetuity as explained in the
         | article, it can stop after the death of the artist or 50 years
         | (to prevent incentive to kill artists).
         | 
         | You do not have to stop at paintings. Some NFTs implement
         | royalties too. It would be more difficult though to implement
         | on fungible items (cars, etc.) but some chairs are unique piece
         | of arts and could probably benefit from the Droit de Suite.
        
         | dataflow wrote:
         | > expecting perpetual payment for work completed in the past
         | (aka passive income)
         | 
         | I'm not sure there's anything _inherently_ wrong with this.
         | Imagine if you made a car and  "sold" it to me for $100, on the
         | condition that I pay you $30k if/when I resell it. I'd think
         | that would be actually incredibly nice of you. I wouldn't think
         | you're somehow a worse person for selling it under those terms
         | rather than demanding a $30k payment today. You're lowering my
         | initial barrier at the expense of recouping some of the payment
         | when I resell it. That's not inherently bad.
         | 
         | Of course you can do this in an exploitative way too; no doubt
         | about that. But determining this requires analyzing many more
         | factors than just the licensing or pricing model.
        
           | hammyhavoc wrote:
           | Why something like a piece of furniture for this example?
           | 
           | Why not the infamous Nike logo? Designed for $35 by student
           | Carolyn Davidson.
           | 
           | She was later compensated _heavily_ , and so she should have
           | been. It was the morally right thing to do.
           | 
           | Would it have been "rentseeking behaviour" for her to ask to
           | be compensated? No. It'd have been reasonable. At $35 and a
           | student, that would have otherwise been exploitation.
           | 
           | Artists and artisans are exploited constantly. I don't think
           | laws like these are unreasonable. If the object still
           | commands value, and there's only one of it, why shouldn't the
           | artist be compensated? They can only create x works in their
           | lifetime, at some point they must retire.
        
       | anorphirith wrote:
       | A perfect example of "Se reposer sur ses lauriers" ...rest on
       | one's laurels
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-27 23:01 UTC)