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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

Back at home, Young had a problem: She was in possession of a looted piece of ancient art. She couldn't keep it. She couldn't sell it. And giving it back to its rightful owners was a lot harder than it sounds.

“At that point, I realized I was probably going to need some help,” Young says. “I was probably going to need an attorney.”

So she hired a lawyer in New York who specializes in international art law, Leila Amineddoleh.

I don't really understand why it would be hard or complicated, unless she wanted a payout.

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Both for establishing the right of ownership of who she is sending it to, as well as requiring indemnification on the transfer should someone else step forward claiming it.

Worst case would be that she sends it to someone over there, then someone else shows up showing they own it. Imagine if someone in the US ended up showing they owned it and the Germans say tough luck. She would then have to defend herself wherever the claimant chooses (possibly even the US), with no actual object should a court decide she has to produce it.

>Imagine if someone in the US ended up showing they owned it

She bought it from Goodwill. What benefit would anything think they could get from suing her if she didn't get a payout?

>She would then have to defend herself wherever the claimant chooses (possibly even the US), with no actual object should a court decide she has to produce it.

How can the court tell her to produce it if she obviously doesn't have it? She was acting in good faith. She bought it for $35, and (assuming she got no payout) gave it to who she thought the rightful owner was for free. Why would anyone think she did anything wrong or owes anyone anything? She got nothing from this. If the museum owns it wrongly, they should sue the museum.

All of that may be true, but none of it means that you will not find yourself on the receiving end of such claims, and in the USA, the cost of your defense is all on you (iirc in England, it is loser pays both attny costs).

So, yes, best to get proper expert advice, even when you are acting in good faith, as there is nothing preventing others from acting in bad faith.

I think the problem in all those statements is how US law works (e.g. badly). In Europe, yes, I would agree with your assessment.

No, this is just what a lawyer would say. Every time I've consulted a lawyer (in Europe) I was told that the situation is very difficult, and there are big risks involved if I didn't do it properly, and a long and detailed contract would be required to avoid all these risks, and it just so happens that the lawyer I consulted with is very experienced in this area and would offer to set up such a contract for me.

The contract is generally some generic patchwork piece made with copy and paste. Half the text doesn't apply to the situation at all and when challenged the lawyer says: "These are standard terms that we always put in there".

Yes and no, from experience, it matters a lot who sends that generic paper to another party. When they see it's sent by a lawyer the effect is very different from when a normal person sends it. You hire the lawyer for their title more then for the expertise in such mundane standard cases. It's a signaling thing.

For example, when (in Germany) you get an "Abmahnung" (https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Abmahnung) for filesharing even though how to respond is standardized advice you are probably still better off having it sent by a lawyer. It tells the other party that if they escalate that you are less likely to cave in to the pressure, that they would have to actually have to go to court, which is expensive and time consuming and in filesharing cases only worth it when they want to "send a signal" or create a court ruling to be able to point to.

Laws are written by lawyers in such a way as to force you to have to hire lawyers

> No, this is just what a lawyer would say.

I meant to say that I trust the legal apparatus in Europe to function more or less correctly even without consulting a lawyer.

Conversely, in the US my idea of what is right generally turns out to be wrong as long as the other party has more money to spend on lawyers.

She's an antiques dealer. It's her job to buy old things and sell them for more. That's why she was in Goodwill.

I think she likely wanted a payout. Also the terms of the deal are confidential. If she didn't get a payout, I don't see why they would be confidential.

Getting a payout seems fair. I doubt the Germans paid anybody when they took it from Italy.

> I doubt the Germans paid anybody when they took it from Italy.

Why? The museum was not built by nazis.

germans were invading and pillaging a long time before Nazi's came to power and that is not unique to Germany - think Napoleon, so it is more likely than not that it was simply stolen, perhaps repeatedly over a couple thousand years.

And the romans before that. Heck they even made just about to Aschaffenburg, where this relic was stolen.

> germans were invading and pillaging

Ludwig I of Bavaria never invaded Italy but he did frequently travel there for pleasure, and was known for purchasing antiquities and art.

> so it is more likely than not that it was simply stolen

You really have little rational basis for this belief. Could it have been stolen? Sure, maybe by Ludwig or maybe by whichever Italian sold it to Ludwig, or maybe by the great-great-great-great-grandfather of whoever sold it to Ludwig. But "more likely than not" stolen by Ludwig? Such confidence is merely a reflection of your biases.

Like all of Europa, Germany and Italy have thousands of years of history together. You are using nationalist terminology that is not even 200 years old to try to grasp 2000 years of history.

At the time king Ludwig I of Bavaria acquired that bust, the nation you identify as "Italy" didn't yet exist. And that was in the early modern. For most of the medieval age, the small territories that today are within southern germany and northern italy were vassals of the same empires.

And while europa sure was almost constantly at war with itself, there was also a lot of trade going on. Who took that bust from whom and if they paid with coin or sword is most likely lost to time.

This just seems to reinforce the notion of "possession is 9/10ths of the law". I'm not saying she should keep it, but it's not obvious who it "belongs" to.

You're assuming it was taken by force. What if... it was bought from an Italian goodwill in the 1800's?

Hell, maybe an Italian goodwill in the 400's.

Yep, maybe just commissioned by a citizen of the Roman Empire living in today's Germany back when Pompeius was a general still in the news.

The "King" in front of his name definitely proves that either it or the wealth that was used to acquire it was ill-gotten. All power and wealth of royalty was taken by force.

By force, true, but not necessarily illegally.

Of course not. They used force to make unjust laws that allowed them to do it. The laws of royalty are fundamentally illegitimate.

I like that they tacked on that it would be on display in Texas for about a year as part of the deal. It kind of, sort of masks that this was probably a sizable financial transaction.

Some points (IANAL):

* How is it going to be transported? Squashing it into airplane luggage is probably not a good idea, neither is sending it via a parcel.

* What happens if something happens to it during transport? Generally works of art are insured before they are being transported. Do you know insurers though? Before you insure it, you need to determine the value.

* For very important works of art, countries might put restrictions onto exports. Not sure if this includes the US, but customs are certainly an important question.

* You might get sued by the rightful owners for wrong handling... ideally you want an agreement that releases you from any requirements to pay for damages to the object.

* Ideally the insurance, transport, etc is paid by the rightful owners, which would be good to have in a contract. How do you enforce that they really pay? Ideally, the owners would take care about the insurer and transportation directly, so that it's them getting the bills instead of you getting them and then having to get the owners to pay them.

Ask them to pick it up.

So maybe she emails the museum and says "pick it up." And then a week later a guy shows up on her doorstep and says "I'm here to pick it up." How does she know the guy really works for the museum and is not some criminal who hacked into her email? She's never met him, and he's not going to be carrying an FBI badge after all. If she gives the bust to the wrong guy, maybe the museum sues her because it was their property in the first place.

There are well-established legal procedures to deal with matters like identity verification, and lawyers can handle them. That's one reason why she needs a lawyer.

I’d be damned if I were going to pay for a lawyer because of a $35 goodwill thing. Ancient Roman art or no. I can totally see why people just keep it on the mantelpiece.

If my email's hacked I have much bigger worries than a fake delivery pickup. That's a real stretch of a scenario.

I disagree that this scenario is far-fetched:

https://archive.ph/prAfe

I'm not saying that an email hack is far-fetched, I'm saying that worrying about this specific consequence of an email hack, while otherwise not worrying about an email hack, is far-fetched. It's like refusing to go to a specific store because you're worried your car engine will catch fire. If you have bigger problems, deal with those first! Don't use them as an excuse while not trying to fix them or take them seriously in any other way.

> * How is it going to be transported? Squashing it into airplane luggage is probably not a good idea, neither is sending it via a parcel.

Art logistics is a thriving and lucrative business: https://www.dbschenker.com/de-en/products/art-logistics-

Under the 4th Geneva Convention - looting is a war crime. If you know you're in possession of ill gotten gains - one should always obtain legal advice -

Or you could just keep the receipt from Goodwill and use your money in more better ways than paying a lawyer.

But that’s not how the real world works.

She 100% did the right thing here.

And frankly she deserves a payout for all of the legwork.

She deserves a payout because she spent money a on lawyer to get a payout? That seems circular.

She specifically stated this in her article,

> She was in possession of a looted piece of ancient art. She couldn't keep it. She couldn't sell it. And giving it back to its rightful owners was a lot harder than it sounds.

Why are you building up a false narrative?

The article wasn't written by her, that isn't a statement from her. That is the journalist's statement, Matt Largey. It may or may not be completely accurate. What does "couldn't keep it" mean anyway? That she felt morally obliged to return it? Or legally obliged? The article doesn't say.

She certainly could have kept it on display in her private residence without anyone knowing anything about its provenance except her.

Let's talk to a lawyer first about that little concept of "concealment of stolen goods".

She didn't steal it and there's no way anyone could ever presume she knew it was stolen. IF she had kept her mouth shut.

This is actually an interesting question.

- If you find £10,000 cash in the street, do you keep it?

- If you find a watch in the street, do you keep it?

- If you bought a laptop from your cousin Vinny for $50 and found out it was stolen, do you keep it?

In my country of residence, all of these are crimes (theft by finding / knowingly handling stolen property).

Obviously, someone could choose to keep their mouth shut... but that would not change the fact of it being a crime punishable by law.

The average American commits 3 felonies a day.

I'm willing to keep found treasure as one of my 3.

If you don't trust statements in the article, then you have absolutely nothing to base any of this discussion on. Following your reasoning, why do you trust anything in the story, rather than just select pieces of it - does the bust even exist? Is the person in the story real or just made up? Is the bust even Roman?

Everyone here is discussing the situation, given the story reported. What else do we, armchair critics, have to go on?

Feelings?

No need to be so rude.

The story was ambiguous. Don't pretend it wasn't, and don't turn that into a giant strawman.

Statements from articles should be considered, not absolutely trusted.

> What else do we, armchair critics, have to go on?

Everything outside of the article, the sum of our experience with the way the world works. Our experience with the way people work, the way people will give accounts of their actions that make themselves look good. The way the "telephone game" works, where the more people something goes through, the more uncertainty there is. Presumably, the journalist was told by the woman that she believed she couldn't keep it, yes? But the journalist didn't actually quote what she said. The journalist paraphrased what she said instead, rephrased it in his own words. This is generally fine, but you have to remain cognizant of the fact that it isn't precisely what she said. The comment I responded to claimed "She specifically stated this in her article", which simply isn't true. That commenter failed to perceive the difference between somebody being quoted, and somebody's statements being paraphrased. Even when you trust the journalist to act in good faith, there is a big difference between quoting somebody and rephrasing what they said.

As a general rule, outside of the black market you will not find an auction house that touches a looted piece of art with a ten-foot-pole. Looted art is basically unsellable.

The art was looted far before it ever came into that museum's possession.

Why do you think you know that? If an Italian noble finds a marble head when digging out a wine cellar on his own property and keeps it for himself, is that looting? That depends entirely on what the local laws said about such artifacts at the time. You don't know who first found it. You don't know where it was found, and when. You don't even know it was buried in the first place; it might have been privately owned the entire time since it was originally carved, passed along for two thousand years through innumerable legitimate private sales.

Here are some things you could know, if you bothered to read up on the matter: Ludwig I never invaded Italy, never sacked Rome, but did visit Italy as was the fashion of anybody in Europe who had the means to do so. He is known to have purchased numerous artifacts and works of art from wealthy Italian collectors and dealers, which might include this bust.

In the real world, she might lose possession of the object and be out $35 if she can keep her receipt. Still way cheaper than a lawyer.

I doubt I would involve lawyers across multiple nations if I ever encountered such a thing. Preserve it, enjoy it, and donate it to a major museum in my home nation when I die. It will find its way to a rightful home.

And then marvel in wonder of legal problems you are in, because you did not knew this or that.

Judging by the article, there is no way to prove that it was looted in the first place.

> I don't really understand why it would be hard or complicated

Why would you expect a priori to understand? Or have you dealt in the past with a meaningfully comparable problem, and found it easy and simple?

"I'm not a lawyer and I don't understand international law, but despite that (lack of) knowledge I'm going to assume to assume this person was trying to do a bad thing"

Per the article, she is an antiquities dealer who specializes in looking for treasures at thrift stores. So generally speaking she is absolutely looking for a payout. We don't know what terms she negotiated this time, per the article those terms are confidential, but we do know that whatever she negotiated was not a simple return. The article says this much of it: "The exact terms of the deal are confidential, but the head will stay in Texas — on display — for about a year."

But supposing she was looking for a payout in this instance, is it fair to characterize looking for a payout as "trying to do a bad thing"? I don't think so, no. She may well have been within her legal rights to seek a payout. It seems safe to presume she had at least some legal right to the bust, since the deal she came to with the German museum was not simply return it immediately.

The article claims "Young had a problem: She was in possession of a looted piece of ancient art. She couldn't keep it. She couldn't sell it." But the article doesn't directly quote her saying this. It's conceivable she felt she was morally or ethically obliged to return it. Or maybe she incorrectly believed she was legally obliged to return it, and learned differently only after hiring the lawyer.

> I don't really understand why it would be hard or complicated

If you don't know what to do regarding legal matters, hiring a lawyer is an obvious thing to do. It may not be hard or complicated, or maybe it is, that's for her lawyer to tell.

Yeah the hiring a lawyer thing is mind boggling. If that’s the only option, then just donate the stupid head back to Goodwill and be done with it. Goodwill even says they don’t keep records about who makes donations!

Why is it mind boggling?

I'd hire a lawyer instantly if I became aware I was in possession of stolen war loot. It's a war crime, and things can get quite iffy really quickly - especially if somehow it goes viral.

Much better to just CYA and spend $500 on a lawyer so you ensure you don't go to prison or be held liable for something silly.

Call it a hard lesson I've learned multiple times over throughout my life. When in doubt, it's never inappropriate to hire legal counsel.

> So she hired a lawyer in New York who specializes in international art law, Leila Amineddoleh.

> Negotiations began. It was complicated. It takes a long time to figure out all this stuff — even in the best of times. But the pandemic complicated things even further.

The article doesn't say what the legal fees were, but based on this description I could imagine scenarios where they were well in excess of $500.

That's like an hour or two of a lawyer's services. It seems like it took much more time.

> Why is it mind boggling?

Because in this situation it’s comically risk-averse and a good way to burn $500 (which I would guess is quite low for what sounds like protracted negotiations) — if she was trying to protect herself and not cash in on this thing.

She’s not a war criminal, she bought a statue at Goodwill.

Once word’s out, just don’t hire a lawyer and stick it in your attic. Somebody’s either gonna come get it or they won’t. If you absolutely must, take it to a police station and drop it off or call the local news and see if they want to do a story on it.

My guess is that she placed a high value on trying to get an ancient piece of art back to its rightful owner without falling afoul of any laws governing possession of stolen art, and that hiring a lawyer is a pretty good way to deal with that situation. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble by chucking it in a lake, but something tells me that wouldn't have been a satisfying outcome to her. Everything humans do isn't always about maximizing value to oneself.

Yeah, I guess I just don’t get placing a higher value on this thing than whoever it belonged to. If they want it back, just come get it. If I have to get a lawyer involved and beg them to take it off my hands, seems like they don’t really give a shit so why should I?

> I have to get a lawyer involved and beg them to take it off my hands

I'm not sure where you're getting this idea from. I'm sure there were plenty of people willing to take it off her hands. The lawyer is there to help that happen in a legal way.

From rereading the article, it’s pretty clear that she got paid off. Sounds like that’s what the lawyer was for.

Because if I just want to be rid of the thing, I don’t need a JD to fire off an email that says, “Hey, I’ve got this thing. If somebody wants it, figure it out and let me know, otherwise it’s in the attic.”

I suggest that the reason that the item is staying in Texas on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art for about a year is that it's going to take that long to complete the paperwork to export it to Germany. It has to pass through a bunch of restrictions related to traffic in antiquities (looted or not), it has a value to be determined for import/export that's potentially going to require duty payments, ownership is not totally established so everyone who touches it needs some sort of indemnification in case someone claiming ownership shows up (even if they are just chancing their arm), and it'll have to be insured. Unfortunately I don't believe the thrift store receipt helps any - otherwise thrift store receipts would be a fantastic tool for e.g. money laundering. It would have taken her and one or more specialist lawyers to get to the stage where she could safely hand it to a museum. I'd expect her to be considerably out of pocket in time and fees. It would make an interesting plot for a movie if you imagine someone trying all the naive approaches and triggering all the things that could possibly go wrong.

You do have some good points there.

Most certainly looking for a payout. Has anyone been to a thrift store recently? About 30% of people are in need/want of inexpensive secondhand items, while the rest of the crowd — smartphones in hand — are trying to see what can be resold for profit on EBay. This whole “side hustle” economy is killing the thrift store as an source for people in need to find inexpensive goods.

Pretty sure that's just the market getting efficient.

It’s pretty bad. I was at a community yard sale last week, and I was genuinely looking for interesting and useful things not to turn around and sell on eBay but to have an use. Unfortunately, I do a more than a few individuals who were running from table to table tossing around things looking for vintage items that they can turn a profit on and most interesting things were sold before I could even get to the table.

>>is killing the thrift store as an source for people in need to find inexpensive goods.

thrift stores don't exist to help people find cheap stuff - they exist to raise or earn money, and many org's then use that money to fund the things they want to fund.

It might not be a 'side hustle' for some of these people, it may be the only income they earn, and good for them for showing their entrepreneurial instincts - and doubt very many are getting rich at it (except perhaps a few lucky ones that find that needle in a haystack).

I see a variation on this comment all the time now and it makes me slightly crazy. It feels like the product of extremely online culture (or just Twitter) where people work up a hypothesis of outrage with no connection to reality at all and just run with it forever until it's fact.

The thrift store has never been about getting the items on sale to needy people that's just literally not the philosophy behind the entire concept.

The thrift store model has been about getting money from the people who shop there who are people who have money but not having to pay for the goods they sell because they are charitably donated to be sold and then using the money they make to advance the mission of the charity.

It's a fundraising concept. The funds come from people who have funds. The goods come from people that have spare goods. And then THE MONEY THEY MAKE goes to actually do good in the world. The limiting factor on every thrift store model I've ever seen is having enough customers. There's always tons and tons of stuff to sell, many have to throw away half the donations they get because there's no room.

The people who are in thrift stores buying things for Ebay and increasing the money that goes to the charity are HELPING the thrift store, not killing it. This mindless outrage is literally the opposite of the actual dynamic at work here.

No good deed goes unpunished

If you live by that maxim and never do good, you'll never see it refuted. Truth is, people do good things all the time and are frequently rewarded for it. Sometimes people get punished for doing a good thing, but it's scarcely a certainty and our society would be a lot shittier if everybody went around assuming it was.

I was that guy in the office who would volunteer to help move equipment or furniture for office events. I made a lot of friends.

My boss would make fun of me when my good deeds would result in hassle for me. She was a meanie.

I have been reward cash, wine, simple thanks etc... on the numerous times I've handed in lost property or helped a stranger with directions etc.

Just like trying to report a security vulnerability to a company in good faith, you are often better off just publishing it anonymously even if it is worse for the company.

I think you assuming that she is some sort of art blackmailer is a truly awful take. Maybe she just want to make sure it went back to the rightful owners? So she contacted a expert.

There is nothing wrong with that

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