How would the viewer confirm the drive's contents?

Look! I took a crap on a purple plate. It's ART!!!!!

Perhaps the RIAA should purchase it from the "artist" at the full valuation he's attributed to it. It can't be any less inflated then the amounts that they use when they sue people.

JohnAnnArbor: How would the viewer confirm the drive's contents?

Plug the drive into a computer

The piece is on sale

17 USC 506(a) Criminal Infringement.-
(1) In general.- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed-
(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.

Rev.K: I'll give you $50 for it.

Well tfa says the artist is selling it...for an amount equal to the retail value of the hard drive. So you might not be far off.

Godot42: Look! I took a crap on a purple plate. It's ART!!!!!

A commentary on modern politics?

So that's what, 100 Trillion dollars in RIAA terms

5 million dollars worth of pirated content? So per the RIAA that's what, 2 songs?

Right or wrong there are those consider trolling to be a fine art and there are certainly web sites dedicated to doing nothing else. That being said it can be a pretty foolish idea to do so openly. I'm reminded of a time I read a comment on slashdot a decade ago from someone openly taunting the MPAA to come after him. I read the comment and thought to myself 'what an idiot'. I then read the name of the comment writer and muttered out loud 'I know that idiot'.

/it was my coworker

OK, I'm pretty liberal when it comes to the definition of "art", but this is just lazy! I'll defend Marcel Duchamp signing the sky, for the love of "Bob", but the difference is he did it, it's done, and theoretical art like this is useless when repeated.

For instance, if someone used Jackson Pollocks "technique", paints, and brushes, it still would be useless as art, since the original process (Pollock) was the art, the act. The painting itself was an artifact.

This "art" is just like watching 1000 hours of VH1, then finding your old Nintendo system and playing the hell out of that. Actually, the Nintendo lost weekend would be much more fun.

scottydoesntknow: Theaetetus: The piece is on sale

17 USC 506(a) Criminal Infringement.-
(1) In general.- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed-
(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.

Actually it says he's selling the HDD for the retail price of the HDD. The pirated stuff comes free.

Meh, that's been tried and failed... "I'm not selling this bootleg, I'm selling the cassette which simply happens to contain a bootleg."

But yeah, I was joking. The criminal infringement statute wasn't intended to cover this sort of thing.

the_sidewinder: Not right now, with how high HDD prices have gotten

Since when? I bought a 2TB external HDD for $140 the other day.

ok so:

137GB Nintendo DS ROM collection
130GB of PC games
124GB from the artist's music collection
133GB in ebooks

that's 524 GB.
I'm guessing the rest is modest collection of lolcats and porn.

although if there is a decent amount of philosoraptors in there, I might be interested.

Wow. I have a lot of old art in my garage.

It's art. It's supposed to be shallow observations made manifest so that equally shallow viewers can ooh and ahh over how deep it is.

How is this trolling the Boy Scouts of America?

Fireproof: How is this trolling the Boy Scouts of America?

It's full of child porn.

5 Million is a lot of beastiality pr0n.

I think I have to turn in my pretentious art snob card for this one, but I think that pieces where the experience of the narrative can be described in one sentence without even seeing the damn thing is cheating, just a little bit. That doesn't mean the piece isn't dynamic or innovative or anything, but you are still cheating at art.

"Can trolling the RIAA/MPAA/BSA be considered art?"

Subby, everyone knows that trolling is a art!

onyxruby: Right or wrong there are those consider trolling to be a fine art and there are certainly web sites dedicated to doing nothing else. That being said it can be a pretty foolish idea to do so openly. I'm reminded of a time I read a comment on slashdot a decade ago from someone openly taunting the MPAA to come after him.

I have to disagree as he's openly challenging the perceived value of an abstract item. Music and movies are meant to be consumed visually and/or audibly. If he openly pirates that amount of content that is arbitrarily priced between $1.00 to $5.00 (depending on the content) but shows that it is not used or consumed is it really valuable as a property? I say of course but it's an abstract concept since there is not physical object in question but bits of data frozen on a drive awaiting access. There are no stolen CDs or DVDs which are physical objects incorporated and it plays on the philosophy of a liberalized copyright law asking can someone monetize art or concepts when they're floating about what is nebulously called the web?

As someone who went through 5 years of art school and openly despised most Fine Art and Sculpture majors for pulling off "art" by nailing raw steaks to walls or drawing a straight line with a ruler and HB pencil on a post-it, I have to say... I like it.

I just want to steal it because I'm too lazy to download it myself.

Thanks for a month old news story.

Jonathan Hohensee: I think I have to turn in my pretentious art snob card for this one, but I think that pieces where the experience of the narrative can be described in one sentence without even seeing the damn thing is cheating, just a little bit. That doesn't mean the piece isn't dynamic or innovative or anything, but you are still cheating at art.

Don't worry, I think you can keep your pretentious art snob card.

What does "trolling" mean?

Begoggle: What does "trolling" mean?

It's somethin ya do when yer fishing

My prediction:

Some idiot philanthropist will buy it, plug it into his laptop, and will discover a terabyte of Rick Astley.

homarjr: the_sidewinder: Not right now, with how high HDD prices have gotten

Since when? I bought a 2TB external HDD for $140 the other day.

Two months ago they were selling for $60.

KatjaMouse: As someone who went through 5 years of art school and openly despised most Fine Art and Sculpture majors for pulling off "art" by nailing raw steaks to walls or drawing a straight line with a ruler and HB pencil on a post-it, I have to say... I like it.

I happen to like it as well, the point is to show the absurdity of what the MAFIAA claims. Perhaps his display would have been even better with an identical drive next to the first with no way to know which one of the drives is 'worth' 5 million and which one is worth $100+ dollars?

My issue was that the artist was doing this openly in such a manner that begs them to sue the artist into the stone age. I don't argue the statement, I argue the wisdom in letting them know who made the statement.

$5 million in pirated content... what's that like 6 songs?

onyxruby: I happen to like it as well, the point is to show the absurdity of what the MAFIAA claims. Perhaps his display would have been even better with an identical drive next to the first with no way to know which one of the drives is 'worth' 5 million and which one is worth $100+ dollars?

I think I would've liked that better too now that you mention it.

onyxruby: My issue was that the artist was doing this openly in such a manner that begs them to sue the artist into the stone age. I don't argue the statement, I argue the wisdom in letting them know who made the statement.

But my argument is if his intent was to intentionally be inflammatory and not consume content actually null and void the purpose of pirating?

1. Yes, it is unquestionably art

2. They should rig it up with a write-blocker (new window) and a computer and let patrons view the data

Remember Cletus, just because you could have done it but didn't/your five year old could have done it/you don't understand it and that makes you angry doesn't make it not art.

RoosterCogburn: How can this be considered art? He basically took an external hard drive out of a box and put it on a plate. What he considers to be the "Art" portion of this is the invisible contents inside of the hard drive.

So by definition, putting a box on a table could be considered art. We'll call the exhibit Schroedinger's Cat.

If I remember my art, Duchamp made a found art sculpture and his friend put something inside of it, and Duchamp never found out what it was. He just shook it and guessed at what it was.

/To this day nobody knows what's inside.

KatjaMouse: But my argument is if his intent was to intentionally be inflammatory and not consume content actually null and void the purpose of pirating?

Ah, but at that point it has gone from art to civil disobedience. The difference between civil disobedience and a criminal is that one act is stood behind despite the criminal repercussions and the other act is hidden to avoid criminal repercussions. I can respect most civil disobedience for it's own merit.

So can civil disobedience also be art or does it simply become the steak nailed to the wall?

Trolling is a staple of modern art.

I don't think this guy is actually even using RIAA math, he is just using the pure retail value of the content to calculate the "5 Million Dollar!" value of the drive.

The article says that Nintendo ROMs and ebooks make up a large chunk of it. You can fit a lot these in very little space (judging by the completely legal ones I encountered online).

If you multiple the value of the drive with the type of math that the RIAA/MPAA's lawyers use you could easily arrive at a value grater than the GDP of a mid-sized nation. If you use the sort of math they tries to use when they claimed that Limewire owed them Trillions, you would probably exceed the combined global GDP.

I think it is shocking that the 5 million in a brick value is derived by a non-inflated measure.

\Does Lloyds insure hard-drives?

onyxruby: So can civil disobedience also be art or does it simply become the steak nailed to the wall?

Ask any spray paint artist.

the_sidewinder: StrangeQ: Rev.K: I'll give you $50 for it.

Well tfa says the artist is selling it...for an amount equal to the retail value of the hard drive. So you might not be far off.

Not right now, with how high HDD prices have gotten

Maybe you shouldn't be buying computer hardware at Bestbuy then.

/but I want that kick-ass Voodoo II they sell!!!
//and it is only 200 bucks

Loki-L: the type of math that the RIAA/MPAA's lawyers use

That's actually the math in the statute.