Ah! Finally. The definitive artistic monument to illegal file downloading that has ever been erected, now featured on the contemporary technological art portal Art404. 5 Million Dollars 1 Terabyte (2011) by Manuel Palou is… a hard drive filled with 1,016 GB of pirated software and files, which are conveniently listed for download here (PDF).
Inside? A digital cornucopia of Adobe, Rosetta and video gaming stuff. Most expensive? “Fiction Library,” three million dollars worth of it. How come? Artist Manuel Palou tells ANIMAL:
It’s EVERY Fiction book published from 2003-2011. I took a large sample of the books from the collection, averaged their price to come up with a mean cost per book, which I multiplied by the number of books in the torrent.
Sure, it’s not a 100% accurate estimate, but “the implications on the value of piracy” are easy to read.
If there were badly ripped movies hidden in this digital tomb, the “sculpture” could have used a few Russian mafia goons to flank it as guards, since it’s their trade. Maybe. It’s kind of a perfect minimal statement, just like this. Ommm.
How does 133 GB of fiction books price out to 3 million dollars, and similar file sizes' worth of games ($150K) and music ($46K) are a fraction. Books are obviously a smaller file size, but are they using hardback prices?
Good question. I asked. Will let you know.
Your question has been answered. See above.
Averaging (assuming mean) the price of the books and then multiplying that by the number of books without factoring for outliers and the like could have major implications on the final estimated value. Still, I suppose part of the point of an art piece about piracy is to question the way we value these things, so I won't knock it.
cheap fake.
I just downloaded this art piece on piratebay for $5! Also got 1,386,125 copies of Hoarders, Season 1.
Equivalent physical retail price is one way to value it. The amount you'd be fined if prosecuted for pirating it all would be far more entertaining…
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