The Actual Reasons Art Sells For So Much
If you’re like me, you’re constantly baffled by the utter crap that’s been peddled as art for insane prices, sometimes millions of them.
My general rule is that if someone tries to act superior and “Oh, you wouldn’t get it,” then they’re full of pretentious crap and you should stay away.
Note: This is not financial advice. You should consult your accountant or your financial advisor for any decisions you make.
This article clears some facts out, The Actual Reasons Art Sells For So Much on Ranker.
My Thoughts:
The tax loophole used to exist up until 2018. That’s in the US, at least. I’m sure it’s different for other countries. I’m sure art sales are still being used to launder money, and this has even spilled into online game money. NFTs are a natural extension of that. I’m not saying all NFTs sold were money laundering, but I’m sure a good chunk of money went into that.
Read the article, it makes a few good points. What’s interesting is the fact that the artist’s name, or influence, plus scarcity drives up the price. Well, if you’re well known, you can leverage that for yourself in NFTs. Also, artists get no money from the resale price. That’s on them, to be fair. They signed away all royalties by selling one of their creations for a couple thousand dollars and thought it was a great deal. Then the art dealer turned around and sold it for millions, owing nothing to the artist. If you can’t understand that you’re selling away your rights forever, then you don’t deserve to get royalties, period. If you need an eye-opener for that, you should read Dean Wesley Smith’s book, The Magic Bakery. It’s focused on books but it applies to anything you create, being art, music, books, videogames, anything that can have royalties attached on it.
To summarize, your creation is a magic pie. You can cut out slices of that pie and sell them, and they grow back. It’s a magic pie. That’s copyright. When you make something, you own it. You can license it for a specific use and for a specific amount of time, and you get paid for it, either a lump sum or a percentage. It’s a pain to manage and many artists don’t want to bother with the hassle, and that’s why they get scammed by entrepreneurial art traders. In the example given in the article with that shiny rabbit, the artist effectively sold his magic pie to someone else, forever. Contrast that to people like Metallica, who hold on to their rights and actively fight for their royalties, and who get paid for each use of their songs.
Now, NFTs have a nifty (heh!) system inside them. You get about 10% for each sale after the initial one. So, you sell something for like 0.5 Ether. Nice. Payday, yay! Then the art dealer turns around and does his magic and hypes you up and sells it for 100 Ether. Not so yay in the old days. But with NFTs, at least you get 10% of that secondary sale. So the blockchain kinda automates some of that.
So, yeah. Download Metamask, buy some Ethereum to load it up, you’ll need a lot because gas prices are high, and mint some of your art into NFTs. And while you’re there you can check out my own gallery on OpenSea, Mythography Studios Crypto.
