Cease & Desist Art: yes, this is illegal!

curated by Simona Lodi

For some years now, it has become common among digital artists to focus on illegal art practices. Countless Cease & Desist letters have been sent out by companies to pirates, plagiarists, hackers and disturbers, which are shown off as trophies in exhibitions, web communities and mailing lists. Action artists promote controversial forms of art, using guerilla tactics to protest against the fairness of copyright and intellectual property laws.

Receiving a Cease & Desist letter has become the latest badge in championing the freedom to create in the Corporation Age. Any artist interested in taking part in the movement chooses a good lawyer rather than a good gallery owner. What is happening to the future of art? What rights and freedoms are these artists championing? Does all this have something to do with the end of techno-utopias?

In what way has business co-opted the values of hackers, exploiting open source initiatives, web freedom and on-line equality and sparking the use of these practices?

List of Artists and works:

0100101110101101.ORG | Eva & Franco Mattes

Vaticano.org (1998)

http://0100101110101101.org/home/vaticano.org/story.html [http://0100101110101101.org/home/vaticano.org/story.html]



0100101110101101.ORG | Eva & Franco Mattes

Nike Ground (2003)

http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/nikeground/story.html [http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/nikeground/story.html]



Paolo Cirio, Alessandro Ludovico, UBERMORGEN.COM

Amazon Noir (2006)

http://www.amazon-noir.com [http://www.amazon-noir.com/]



Paolo Cirio, Alessandro Ludovico, UBERMORGEN.COM

GWEI | Google Will Eat Itself (2005)

http://www.gwei.org/index.php



etoy

The Digital Hijack (1996)

www.hijack.org



etoy

Toywar

http://toywar.etoy.com/timeline.html



Salvatore Iaconesi | Oriana Persico

REFF | romaeuropa.org (2009)

http://www.romaeuropa.org



Pete Ippel

oBay (2006)

http://www.obay.info/



Les Liens Invisibles

Liberté, Egalité, Volonté :: The Blasfemous Art Riot (2007)

http://www.luca-volonte.com/



Les Liens Invisibles

Seppukoo (2009)

http://www.seppukoo.com/ [http://www.seppukoo.com/]

Moddr_

The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine (2009)

http://suicidemachine.org/



®TMark

GWBush.com (1999)

http://rtmark.com/gwbush/ [http://rtmark.com/gwbush/]

Cornelia Sollfrank

I DON'T KNOW (1968/2006)

Conversation between Andy Warhol and Cornelia Sollfrank

http://www.artwarez.org/72.0.html?&L=1 [http://www.artwarez.org/72.0.html?&L=1]



The Yes Men

The legendary BBC Bhopal Hoax (2004)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI]

UBERMORGEN.COM

The Injunction Generator (2003)

http://www.ipnic.org/ [http://www.ipnic.org/]

The works are displayed without legal permission of the artists.