I hear you; the copyright case especially shows that he is no paragon of anti-capitalism. But I think it's worth maintaining that (1) some things are worse than other things and (2) motive matters and (3) imperfect people can still make good points.
I have never, ever felt like a piece of Banksy's art, or any original piece of visual artwork for that matter, is being shoved down my throat. They're quiet, static, relatively low in number, and easily avoidable & ignorable. I've never felt distracted or distressed because my local coffee shop has a new mural on their wall, and nobody has ever forced me to walk through an art museum in order to get to the grocery store. On the other hand, advertisements are loud, moving, insanely numerous, and totally non-optional. My local subway and subway stations are plastered in advertisements; if I want to transit anywhere, I must endure them.
Plus, the motives are different! Sure, Banksy or $artist_name likely want folks to find their art appealing and then compensate them somehow, via buying copies, commissioning new art, spreading their reputation, whatever. But advertisers do not care if you found their ad appealing; they just want you to buy their product. In fact, many ads are purposely obnoxious or abhorrent just because it's an effective way to bring your attention towards their product. How dystopian is that?
And yes, there's some irony in Banksy, as someone who occasionally benefits from copyright law, to be making this point. But that doesn't make him wrong! And, it'd be far more ironic if, I don't know, Sergey Brin or someone else who use hugely benefited from advertising and copyright law were making the point.
Multiply it times a billion. One Banksy is tolerable, a million people graffiting their opinions everywhere would be truly awful. Therefore what Banksy is doing is immoral.
I disagree with the scale multiplier being a metric of morality. If one ice cream truck drives down my street, it puts me in a good mood even if I don't want to buy any ice cream from them. A continuous parade of ice cream trucks would be maddening. But that doesn't mean the ice cream truck driver who actually exists is behaving poorly.
One Jesus of Nazareth is tolerable, a million people preaching their opinions everywhere would be truly awful. Therefore what Jesus was doing is immoral.
>I hear you; the copyright case especially shows that he is no paragon of anti-capitalism.
Does it, though? The linked TMZ article suggests the lawsuit was filed by the Los Angeles DA on behalf of the property owner whose property lost value because of the defacement. It doesn't appear that Banksy himself is involved in the lawsuit.
I have never, ever felt like a piece of Banksy's art, or any original piece of visual artwork for that matter, is being shoved down my throat. They're quiet, static, relatively low in number, and easily avoidable & ignorable. I've never felt distracted or distressed because my local coffee shop has a new mural on their wall, and nobody has ever forced me to walk through an art museum in order to get to the grocery store. On the other hand, advertisements are loud, moving, insanely numerous, and totally non-optional. My local subway and subway stations are plastered in advertisements; if I want to transit anywhere, I must endure them.
Plus, the motives are different! Sure, Banksy or $artist_name likely want folks to find their art appealing and then compensate them somehow, via buying copies, commissioning new art, spreading their reputation, whatever. But advertisers do not care if you found their ad appealing; they just want you to buy their product. In fact, many ads are purposely obnoxious or abhorrent just because it's an effective way to bring your attention towards their product. How dystopian is that?
And yes, there's some irony in Banksy, as someone who occasionally benefits from copyright law, to be making this point. But that doesn't make him wrong! And, it'd be far more ironic if, I don't know, Sergey Brin or someone else who use hugely benefited from advertising and copyright law were making the point.