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Comment by zorpner | Hacker News Reader

It's quite the essay, defending a man who purchased a house for a low price and made a piece of art decades ago, and continues to extract value from both without making any additional meaningful contributions as regards either. It's almost... like he's seeking... rent. I wonder if there's an economic term for this behavior or any theory about whether or not it should be rewarded.

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That's not what rent seeking is, though.

If only we'd have bots on here, I could post this comment automatically, as I haven't seen anyone use the term correctly in the say 2/3 years since it became hip to mention it every time someone makes money in a way someone else has an ideological problem with.

Peppered with Amazon referral links, too.

Who exactly is he seeking rent from when he is the one living in the house?

Not contributing anything? It says right there in the article that he is cleaning the graffiti and rehabbing the house.

How is he extracting value from the house by living in it? As the market value goes up, it costs him more, as his property taxes will go up. As to the photograph, well, he owns the copyright. Period. You may not think we should have copyright, but that’s another conversation.

> As the market value goes up, it costs him more, as his property taxes will go up.

This is a hilarious way to look at it. Please, will the rich of the world burden me with their wealth so that I may pay the tax for them?

> As to the photograph, well, he owns the copyright. Period.

he owns the copyright to a piece of pixel art created as a tribute to his famous album cover photo?

Noooo....the photographer owns the copyright to his original photograph.

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