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This gives me the same feeling as all these old Prince recordings from his vault coming out. On one hand it feels wrong on the part of the family/rights owners

This gives me the same feeling as all these old Prince recordings from his vault coming out. On one hand it feels wrong on the part of the family/rights owners to release this stuff against the wishes of the deceased, but on the other hand I really want that forbidden media.

telesilla 8y ago
A few posthumous items are coming out lately and the same comment keeps coming up: it's ok to have conflicting feelings. We can acknowledge we'd like to respect the artist's wishes and yet, they are gone—and I think it's ok to delve into their hidden lives, as long as no-one living is going to be put to shame.
- imglorp 8y ago
  Another unworkable posthumous wish was Albert Barnes, who was a patron of many impressionist painters around the turn of the last century: Renoir, Matisse, Degas, etc. He bought thousands of famous works and arranged them to his taste, tightly packed on the walls in a tiny building in Merion, PA, USA. The good news is the foundation could bring out now priceless masterworks on easels to compare close up for art classes--my grandmother attended one--a rare opportunity anywhere, and anyone could tour for free. The bad news was his will stipulated the works needed to stay as he arranged them, in that building, where there was only room to display around a tenth of his collection; the place was cramped, difficult to view the works, difficult to secure them, and probably a fire hazard for the works and the visitors. Ultimately, after much debate and lawyering, the collection was moved to a modern facility down the street from the PMA in Philly. The letter of his will was overridden, but the intent--clearly public access and education--was followed. https://www.barnesfoundation.org/ https://www.barnesfoundation.org/
  - inetsee 8y ago
    The documentary, "The Art of the Steal", which discusses the move of the art, did not portray the people behind the move in a very flattering light. My recollection is that some called it the biggest art heist of all time.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    An "evil genie" type can find all kinds of loopholes in a wish. I'd disassemble the building, move the pieces of it inside a larger museum with better public access, and affix the old walls to "structural remediation", which is to say that the pieces of the old building would be held up with steel beams and cables instead of each other. The "storage facility" for the other 90% of the collection would--entirely coincidentally--be arranged nearly identically to traditional museum viewing galleries. Then I'd tilt some of the works askew by a few degrees, just to irritate his ghost. The Earth belongs to the living. I would support a new rule against perpetuities that would limit the control a dead person may exert over their legacy to no more than 20 years beyond their own death--to include copyrights and patents.
    - function_seven 8y ago
      Wholeheartedly agree. Once you're dead, you're dead. One's last wishes should definitely be respected to the first degree. That is, whomever you will your money, possessions, or property to should get those things. There should not be any strings attached beyond that, to the extent that a living person could not tie those same strings (or choose later to untie them)
      - balladeer 8y ago
        What if I do not want to leave my money to anyone, or part of it?
        function_seven 8y ago
        I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure. I imagine it would go to the state? Or you could specify the most extravagant funeral ever and be laid to rest in a diamond-encrusted gold coffin.
        logfromblammo 8y ago
        Property without heirs escheats to the state/crown. Wealth buried in your mausoleum goes to grave robbers, eventually. You could pull a Goldfinger, and irradiate a bunch of gold bars, or otherwise render your wealth unvaluable or unspendable, but that just decreases the wealth supply and makes everything else in the economy a tiny fraction more valuable. Even if you bought an extravagant Viking funeral, and burned your grave ship, and sank all your treasure to the bottom of the ocean, the world still turns without you. The value of money, goods, and services still depend mostly on the active participants in the economy. When you destroyed the representational tokens for the wealth in the economy that you controlled, their value was immediately redistributed to all the other tokens in existence, and those with the information about the destroyed tokens can theoretically earn arbitrage profit by spreading that information around. The best you can do is to write a program that spends your estate after your death, give it to your lawyer to compile and execute on the legal mainframe, and hope no one can hack it before it accomplishes your intended goal.
- ryanmcbride 8y ago
  Definitely. I'm comfortable with this conflict. I don't believe in an afterlife so I know the artists don't actually care, it's more of a respecting the memory thing. I'm happy to finally be able to access these unearthed works, but part of me always silently apologizes first.
stupidcar 8y ago
The interview makes it pretty clear that it isn't being published against his wishes. He wanted it out there, just not while he was alive. Now perhaps Salinger's son (and his widow) could be lying in the hope of profiting off his work, but if so he's chosen a strange way to go about it, blocking publication of his juvenilia and neglecting his own acting and producing career to spend what will apparently be the best part of twenty years collecting and editing it all. Personally though, I think Matt Salinger's genuine. In fact, he comes across as extraordinarily respectful of his father's legacy. Would that we all had people willing to expend so much effort and care to honour us after we have passed.
- trentlott 8y ago
  He supposedly spent effort categorizing his works into works to be published as-is, edited before release, or to be destroyed.
- toyg 8y ago
  It might well be that it is a condition of his father’s will that he should make these arrangements. The royalties on “Catcher” alone are likely worth ten times what he could make from acting gigs (especially gigs he got: he was Captain America in that disgraced straight-to-video production...). At that point, might as well do things properly and carve yourself an essential role as the keeper of dad’s estate.
kregasaurusrex 8y ago
Contrast Prince with Terry Pratchett, whose estate followed his wishes of destroying the hard drives containing Terry's unfinished works with a steamroller.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchet...
- pattisapu 8y ago
  That's terrible (to me, as a selfish fan). I'm happy that Max Brod published Kafka's works against his will that they should be incinerated. One never knows.
  - Ntrails 8y ago
    As a fan I would not want to read anything the author felt was unfinished. Worse, in Pratchetts case, I hate the idea that he would have stopped writing out of fear that part finished things would be released after he died.
    - pattisapu 8y ago
      Sketches show the artist, and for that reason alone I would love to read such works. Great point, though, on the potential chilling effect.

telesilla 8y ago

A few posthumous items are coming out lately and the same comment keeps coming up: it's ok to have conflicting feelings. We can acknowledge we'd like to respect the artist's wishes and yet, they are gone—and I think it's ok to delve into their hidden lives, as long as no-one living is going to be put to shame.

imglorp 8y ago
Another unworkable posthumous wish was Albert Barnes, who was a patron of many impressionist painters around the turn of the last century: Renoir, Matisse, Degas, etc. He bought thousands of famous works and arranged them to his taste, tightly packed on the walls in a tiny building in Merion, PA, USA. The good news is the foundation could bring out now priceless masterworks on easels to compare close up for art classes--my grandmother attended one--a rare opportunity anywhere, and anyone could tour for free. The bad news was his will stipulated the works needed to stay as he arranged them, in that building, where there was only room to display around a tenth of his collection; the place was cramped, difficult to view the works, difficult to secure them, and probably a fire hazard for the works and the visitors. Ultimately, after much debate and lawyering, the collection was moved to a modern facility down the street from the PMA in Philly. The letter of his will was overridden, but the intent--clearly public access and education--was followed. https://www.barnesfoundation.org/ https://www.barnesfoundation.org/
- inetsee 8y ago
  The documentary, "The Art of the Steal", which discusses the move of the art, did not portray the people behind the move in a very flattering light. My recollection is that some called it the biggest art heist of all time.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  An "evil genie" type can find all kinds of loopholes in a wish. I'd disassemble the building, move the pieces of it inside a larger museum with better public access, and affix the old walls to "structural remediation", which is to say that the pieces of the old building would be held up with steel beams and cables instead of each other. The "storage facility" for the other 90% of the collection would--entirely coincidentally--be arranged nearly identically to traditional museum viewing galleries. Then I'd tilt some of the works askew by a few degrees, just to irritate his ghost. The Earth belongs to the living. I would support a new rule against perpetuities that would limit the control a dead person may exert over their legacy to no more than 20 years beyond their own death--to include copyrights and patents.
  - function_seven 8y ago
    Wholeheartedly agree. Once you're dead, you're dead. One's last wishes should definitely be respected to the first degree. That is, whomever you will your money, possessions, or property to should get those things. There should not be any strings attached beyond that, to the extent that a living person could not tie those same strings (or choose later to untie them)
    - balladeer 8y ago
      What if I do not want to leave my money to anyone, or part of it?
      - function_seven 8y ago
        I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure. I imagine it would go to the state? Or you could specify the most extravagant funeral ever and be laid to rest in a diamond-encrusted gold coffin.
        logfromblammo 8y ago
        Property without heirs escheats to the state/crown. Wealth buried in your mausoleum goes to grave robbers, eventually. You could pull a Goldfinger, and irradiate a bunch of gold bars, or otherwise render your wealth unvaluable or unspendable, but that just decreases the wealth supply and makes everything else in the economy a tiny fraction more valuable. Even if you bought an extravagant Viking funeral, and burned your grave ship, and sank all your treasure to the bottom of the ocean, the world still turns without you. The value of money, goods, and services still depend mostly on the active participants in the economy. When you destroyed the representational tokens for the wealth in the economy that you controlled, their value was immediately redistributed to all the other tokens in existence, and those with the information about the destroyed tokens can theoretically earn arbitrage profit by spreading that information around. The best you can do is to write a program that spends your estate after your death, give it to your lawyer to compile and execute on the legal mainframe, and hope no one can hack it before it accomplishes your intended goal.
ryanmcbride 8y ago
Definitely. I'm comfortable with this conflict. I don't believe in an afterlife so I know the artists don't actually care, it's more of a respecting the memory thing. I'm happy to finally be able to access these unearthed works, but part of me always silently apologizes first.

stupidcar 8y ago

The interview makes it pretty clear that it isn't being published against his wishes. He wanted it out there, just not while he was alive. Now perhaps Salinger's son (and his widow) could be lying in the hope of profiting off his work, but if so he's chosen a strange way to go about it, blocking publication of his juvenilia and neglecting his own acting and producing career to spend what will apparently be the best part of twenty years collecting and editing it all. Personally though, I think Matt Salinger's genuine. In fact, he comes across as extraordinarily respectful of his father's legacy. Would that we all had people willing to expend so much effort and care to honour us after we have passed.

trentlott 8y ago
He supposedly spent effort categorizing his works into works to be published as-is, edited before release, or to be destroyed.
toyg 8y ago
It might well be that it is a condition of his father’s will that he should make these arrangements. The royalties on “Catcher” alone are likely worth ten times what he could make from acting gigs (especially gigs he got: he was Captain America in that disgraced straight-to-video production...). At that point, might as well do things properly and carve yourself an essential role as the keeper of dad’s estate.

kregasaurusrex 8y ago

Contrast Prince with Terry Pratchett, whose estate followed his wishes of destroying the hard drives containing Terry's unfinished works with a steamroller.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchet...

pattisapu 8y ago
That's terrible (to me, as a selfish fan). I'm happy that Max Brod published Kafka's works against his will that they should be incinerated. One never knows.
- Ntrails 8y ago
  As a fan I would not want to read anything the author felt was unfinished. Worse, in Pratchetts case, I hate the idea that he would have stopped writing out of fear that part finished things would be released after he died.
  - pattisapu 8y ago
    Sketches show the artist, and for that reason alone I would love to read such works. Great point, though, on the potential chilling effect.