ViBo XXL

ViBo XXL is inspired by a selling model in use at Taschen and by a pamphlet by art collector Alain Servais other than by some ideas I mentioned in my book “Art in the Age of the Cloud”.

Basically Taschen publishes a book in different versions/editions, so you can buy it for €50 but you can also have the same book for €750, €1500, €3000, €5000 and up. The content of the book doesn’t change, the packaging does. The €3/5000 versions are very limited and they come with some prints signed and numbered. Servais is comparing a video to a “package of rights” (cit: video artwork is a package of rights and not a physical object) suggesting that a good way to deal with this strange market could be to have a contract listing all the rights you are acquiring. This happens with the movie and the music industry all the time. Usually when you buy a video from a gallery, you get this very expensive dvd that you can only play home (private view only). You don’t even have the rights to give the artwork to a museum for a public screening, if this isn’t stated in a contract.

ViBo XXL merges these two models, giving the art gallery a physical limited edition to be sold at a high price but still in a very accessible range. You buy a beautiful object and a package of rights associated to a specific video or installation. You get rights to lend the piece for a show. You get rights to have your name always printed in catalogues and labels or wherever it is possible to mention these credits. This way you are sure that your name (if you want this) will be always present in the credits even if you physically don’t lend your edition to the museum (all the owners of the edition will be credited even if it one collector only lends the piece for the show). This is important even if a collector wants to remain anonymous, because if you resell the artwork the new owner might be interested in claiming these type of rights. You get rights to resell the piece with the above said rights and I also receive an agreed 15% from any future resale.

Most importantly you also get Digital Distribution Rights. This is crucial. It means you can re-sell or give for free, a limited number of videos (up to 200 or 500 copies).

The collector becomes a sort of co-producer and at the same time a distributor of the video work he or she acquires.

If you want just the video, you can buy the file for € 10 like you do with movies or music all the time.