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World’s Richest Internet Company Not Wasting Money on Art

We certainly hope none of our readers were ever hoping to make a living producing intellectual property that could conceivably, one day, be converted to ones and zeroes and uploaded to the Internet! The Times reports this morning that dozens of professional illustrators are bristling over a request from Google to provide original artwork, free of charge, to be used as skins on the company’s upcoming Chrome web browser, in exchange for only “a unique and exciting opportunity to display their work in front of millions of people.” Of course, many of the illustrators who rejected the offer already do display their work in front of millions of people (in magazines and print advertisements and on television) and regularly collect paychecks for it. So what’s the problem, then? Dozens of artists did give Google illustrations (probably because magazines are folding and paying less), meaning the others’ outrage is completely moot. We guess Google didn’t earn $1.42 billion last quarter by being dumb.

Use Their Work Free? Some Artists Say No to Google [NYT]

World’s Richest Internet Company Not Wasting Money on Art