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Wow. Another artist who's as much of a fucking douchebag as Anish Kapoor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor#Vantablack_controversy https://en.wikipedi

Wow. Another artist who's as much of a fucking douchebag as Anish Kapoor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor#Vantablack_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor#Vantablack_contro... Seriously. "No-one else gets to use this color but me." Fucking douchebags.

sschueller 4y ago
> "Alexa turn off the lights" > "I am sorry but that color is copyrighted, would you like to purchase it for one month?" Patenting the process to get to Vantablack is fine, but you have no right to own that "color".
- dtagames 4y ago
  Photographs of the illuminated Eiffel Tower are also supposedly "protected" by trademark. Technically, you're not supposed to use one without permission of the government of Paris![0] How ridiculous is that? [0] https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel-tower https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel...
- freejazz 4y ago
  Trademark rights don't allow you to own the color. They allow you to restrict the use of the color within certain areas of trade, assuming you meet certain requirements.
bootloop 4y ago
Don't want to defend any practice here. But this looks like two different things to me. Vantablack is a product (not just a color) which is exclusively licensed to the artist by the manufacturer. If someone comes up with it's own product reproducing the same results these can still can be bought and used for art (and given the wiki entry this happened). Whereas in this article it appears to me that they trademarked the appearance of a color, resulting in other parties changing their recipe to not appear too similar, which I find a bit more problematic.
HelloMcFly 4y ago
Kapoor is not the person who made the decision to license Vantablack to only one artist, he is not the bottleneck for this material. He controls neither its production nor its supply. I don't know why he's become the villain in this story, like's he's holding the Surrey Nanosystems' CEO hostage or something.
- Karellen 4y ago
  > I don't know why he's become the villain in this story, It was his idea. He approached the manufacturers and offered them presumably a shit-ton of money to prevent anyone else from making art with it. He's the one who came up with the idea of spending his money to limit other people's ability to make art in a certain way: > After reading a newspaper story about the discovery of the pigment – which “we think is the blackest material in the universe, after a black hole”, Kapoor says – the excited artist contacted the British manufacturers, NanoSystem, and offered to collaborate with them. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-kapoor-vantablack-art-architecture-exclusive-rights-to-the-blackest-black https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-k... I mean, if a bunch of beancounters in the manufacturer's head office had come up with the idea that, hey, maybe we can maximise our returns to shareholders by offering this exclusive deal around, that's at least in their wheelhouse. And an artist might might be able to rationalise taking that deal if it were offered - maybe even if only on the grounds that "if I don't, someone else will". But for someone who calls themself an artist to decide what they really want to do is limit other people's ability to make art, and will go out of their way to instigate that and make it happen? Fucking. Douchebag.
  - HelloMcFly 4y ago
    Your link indicated nothing about the exclusivity being his idea, though he defended it and clearly benefits from it. I find that besides the point because I'm just judging this one situation vs. the entirety of his character. I already think Kapoor is a bit up his own ass due to his hilarious displeasure for the people of Chicago calling his sculpture "The Bean". But in this situation, it doesn't matter to me. Vantablack is not his to control, period. He doesn't make it, he can't make it, he doesn't sell it, he doesn't have the right to license it to others. It's not a paint, it's not a color, it's a space-age manufactured materials for which the one company that can legally produce it views the artistic application as an advertising spend and have apparently chosen the convenience of one big name vs. a bigger-tent approach. Kapoor is not to blame.

sschueller 4y ago

> "Alexa turn off the lights" > "I am sorry but that color is copyrighted, would you like to purchase it for one month?" Patenting the process to get to Vantablack is fine, but you have no right to own that "color".

dtagames 4y ago
Photographs of the illuminated Eiffel Tower are also supposedly "protected" by trademark. Technically, you're not supposed to use one without permission of the government of Paris![0] How ridiculous is that? [0] https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel-tower https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/business/use-image-of-eiffel...
freejazz 4y ago
Trademark rights don't allow you to own the color. They allow you to restrict the use of the color within certain areas of trade, assuming you meet certain requirements.

bootloop 4y ago

Don't want to defend any practice here. But this looks like two different things to me. Vantablack is a product (not just a color) which is exclusively licensed to the artist by the manufacturer. If someone comes up with it's own product reproducing the same results these can still can be bought and used for art (and given the wiki entry this happened). Whereas in this article it appears to me that they trademarked the appearance of a color, resulting in other parties changing their recipe to not appear too similar, which I find a bit more problematic.

HelloMcFly 4y ago

Kapoor is not the person who made the decision to license Vantablack to only one artist, he is not the bottleneck for this material. He controls neither its production nor its supply. I don't know why he's become the villain in this story, like's he's holding the Surrey Nanosystems' CEO hostage or something.

Karellen 4y ago
> I don't know why he's become the villain in this story, It was his idea. He approached the manufacturers and offered them presumably a shit-ton of money to prevent anyone else from making art with it. He's the one who came up with the idea of spending his money to limit other people's ability to make art in a certain way: > After reading a newspaper story about the discovery of the pigment – which “we think is the blackest material in the universe, after a black hole”, Kapoor says – the excited artist contacted the British manufacturers, NanoSystem, and offered to collaborate with them. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-kapoor-vantablack-art-architecture-exclusive-rights-to-the-blackest-black https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-k... I mean, if a bunch of beancounters in the manufacturer's head office had come up with the idea that, hey, maybe we can maximise our returns to shareholders by offering this exclusive deal around, that's at least in their wheelhouse. And an artist might might be able to rationalise taking that deal if it were offered - maybe even if only on the grounds that "if I don't, someone else will". But for someone who calls themself an artist to decide what they really want to do is limit other people's ability to make art, and will go out of their way to instigate that and make it happen? Fucking. Douchebag.
- HelloMcFly 4y ago
  Your link indicated nothing about the exclusivity being his idea, though he defended it and clearly benefits from it. I find that besides the point because I'm just judging this one situation vs. the entirety of his character. I already think Kapoor is a bit up his own ass due to his hilarious displeasure for the people of Chicago calling his sculpture "The Bean". But in this situation, it doesn't matter to me. Vantablack is not his to control, period. He doesn't make it, he can't make it, he doesn't sell it, he doesn't have the right to license it to others. It's not a paint, it's not a color, it's a space-age manufactured materials for which the one company that can legally produce it views the artistic application as an advertising spend and have apparently chosen the convenience of one big name vs. a bigger-tent approach. Kapoor is not to blame.