What was the biggest art theft in history? | Hacker News Reader

What was the biggest art theft in history?

thecollector.com

26 pointsPetiver67 comments

Supreme court chief justice Oliver Wendell Holmes identified Boston as “The Hub of the Solar System", which is still somehow how people in the area think of themselves in my opinion. I live in the area. So it would be this:

https://www.gardnermuseum.org/organization/theft

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/five-things-know-a...

The British museum collection

was going to say, it's apparently only theft if it's from a museum or collection, and not say, WWII plunder, or the whole music industry.

I was going to argue generative AI, but the British Museum collection is definitely a good contender.

The British museum (and other museums) preserve what would have otherwise been destroyed had it remained wherever they took it from. The nations they recovered artifacts from probably don't even exist anymore. The artifacts only survive because the museum discovered them.

  The nations they recovered artifacts from probably don't even exist anymore.

The previous homeowners were killed in the robbery, I didn't steal from any living soul your honor!

I've heard they even preserve a whole group of islands next to Argentina among other places.

They are certainly preserving the right to self-determination for the people who live there…

Wales, Chile, Greece, China and Egypt aren't countries? That's news to me. Its even more surprising since all of those imaginary countries have museums that hold ancient artifacts that did survive the British museum's "preservation".

Even if you accept the argument that the British Museum "saved" these artifacts, what argument is there now to keep them? Greece has gone so far as to build an entire world class museum in anticipation of the return of the artifacts they claim.

Sarcastically: If there is real concern about these artifacts wouldn't it make sense to remove them from an insular island monarchy with unstable governance and a declining economy?

Let's see.

China, destroyed whole of things during "Cultural Revolution". "Cool and traditional" you see there is just there as a tourist attraction.

Countless ancient sites and artifacts were destroyed during the Syrian civil war.

Egypt...they literally created art destruction before Christianity and then Christianity really speed things up. Look up "Pharaonic Iconoclasm". Then there was take two in 13-14th centuries. Many monuments were destroyed to reuse materials.

Nearly every country that was under communism rule long enough had their heritage destroyed.

Too lazy to lookup Chile and Greece, but I bet Greece would be a pretty different relationship with its past if KKE won.

While Brits did steal a lot, can't argue that they did preserve plenty.

Your defense of British colonialism stealing art is that it preserved culture?

I think that a lot more culture would have been preserved without British colonial genocides.

Yeah, but that's living culture. They only preserve the artifacts, so it all balances out or something.

If China wants to destroy their cultural heritage, that's their right. Same with Syria, Egypt, India, Africa, wherever. No one owes colonizers the gift of their heritage, culture or artifacts.

Sure, the British preserved plenty, but that isn't relevant when none of it was theirs to preserve.

In the case of Syria, it wasn't a conscious choice, it was their civil war. Specifically, it was ISIS doesn't care about any of that cultural heritage, but many other people still do. Why should the most destructive attitude overrule all others?

In many other cases, it was a dictatorship trying to amp up their perceived legitimacy by destroying traces of the past. Again, not exactly a conscious choice of the people living there.

I'm not defending British cultural robbery, but your argument isn't any better.

I'm not arguing that the most destructive attitude should overrule all others - that would be an implicit argument in favor of the colonizers who did far more damage than ISIS ever did. I'm arguing that that cultural transactions should be voluntary and mutually beneficial. It wasn't the conscious choice of anyone to be colonized and exploited by the British, any more than by ISIS or any other dictator.

What ISIS is doing is wrong and a crime against humanity, but the "enlightened West" still has no right to step in unannounced and ransack the place just to ensure a marketable trade in Syrian artifacts. Because that's what imperialism and colonization are really about - not preserving history or archaeology, because that can be done ethically - but capitalism. The British Empire wasn't interested in preserving the cultural heritage of the world for its own sake, they robbed Egyptian tombs, ground up mummies and ate them.

Yeah, and that's wrong. But you were arguing that if some Egyptians did that themselves. Or Syrians (which means mostly ISIS). And that's the part I disagree with.

This shouldn't be a choice between stealing and destroying.

Exactly.

It seems almost as if the person your replying to thinks these cultures and people are somehow unable or not to be trusted with their own history.

Very entitled.

If you actually dig a little deeper than my comment you will find that:

1) Mostly done by dictators and not it's not people's will

2) ISIS

3) In the case of Ancient Egypt, people thought that those things were living gods and Pharaohs inside, and destroying it would kill them.

So yes, I don't trust ISIS and CPP to preserve history.

Go steal some of their history then so you can preserve it for them.

Already did. I've pirated terabytes of movies and shows from all around the world.

Steal, as in deprive them of their property.

We're on HN, we all know making copies is different.

I will leave it to Brits. They been doing it well enough without me.

At least we agree on what is happening.

The Nazis put up some stiff competition when it comes to the wholesale theft of art.

What about art in museums all over the world that is requested back by the country of origin?

They should sue as anyone else can for goods back, if they have proof they own it .

There have been many articles written about this, you should read them. But in some of the more egregious cases, I would ask you this: how do you sue a government for plundered art when the government has passed laws that prevent you from suing the government?

You're talking about publicly possessed (stolen or not) art where the public won't vote to allow consideration of patriating the art abroad?

You said lawsuit. In many countries, a lawsuit is not feasible.

I said sue, not lawsuit. In some countries you use a lawsuit. In others, it merely means to seek legal redress such as petitioning a dictator.

Suing is the same as bringing a lawsuit. You're ineffectually splitting hairs. Still likely not effective. What's your point?

You've pointed to 'many' countries and also to laws stopping this. Now you've evaluated likelihood. Since you were able to drive a likelihood calculus, what specific laws were you calculating against?

Not who you’re responding to but laws that govern this: Multinational:

Hague Convention of 1907

1970 UNESCO

1995 UNIDROIT

US:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieber_Code

2004 HR1047 section 204.

(Those are more about stopping theft / destruction- not return.)

UK:

Except for human tissue, it’s basically not legally regulated.

Australia:

No laws. There is a government program for aboriginal art and remains.

But as an example, Egypt frequently requests the return of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum.

Thanks for the deets. Do you know if UK has courts that handle people who sue one another? It looks as if you can file suit against the UK government. I'm genuinely curious, has someone with evidence of ownership sued the British Museum?

I can see a compelling argument someone might claim ownership of the stone, I'm curious where in the process they were shut down, if they didn't try, or they did and their suit was dismissed.

I’m Curious about this too actually.

The closest “easy” thing would be a statutory claim I think.

But you can’t make it if the debt is over 6 years old.

https://www.gov.uk/statutory-demands

It appears you can sue for the return of property in civil court.

https://www.askthe.police.uk/view-category/?id=2ec7e112-6ad2...

I’m Sure though there’s complexity that make all of that not relevant if it’s a country suing.

Usually international treaty comes into place when things are international.

However, some interesting cases against the British museum.

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/a-uk-heritage-group-wi...

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/world/europe/greece-briti...

There’s a whole book on this dispute from a litigator.

https://www.elginism.com/elgin-marbles/why-dont-we-just-sue-...

And the British museum policy on giving back objects. https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/De...

Finally, it looks like The government may be preventing this. They may have been acted upon in 2005?

And also https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2022...

However, this may answer all your questions.

https://davidallengreen.com/2021/05/the-british-museum-loote...

This is awesome! Can't wait to dig in, thanks for the links.

Impose tariffs on their exports.

Perhaps what's going on now with AI?

Art theft implies actually stealing something from someone. IE taking something away from someone else. So that they no longer have access to that thing. For instance the occasion discussed in the article is about art being stolen from a museum. So that people can no longer go to that museum and look at that art.

I hope you can see the difference between that and the "theft" of "intellectual property" that is so hyped today.

>Art theft implies actually stealing something from someone.

This implies art is by definition a physical thing, which is not something I or many others would agree with. Art can be many things, some of which are tangible, and some which aren't (A live performance, a digital painting etc.).

While the article is talking about physical paintings, I posit that the biggest art theft in history is happening now via AI training. AI which is endangering the very same artists that unwittingly trained it for nothing in return and benefit for others.

>This implies art is by definition a physical thing

It doesn't, you're reading something that isn't there. It defines "theft", not "art". Regardless of what you think, theft has a pretty clear definition, and intellectual property cannot be stolen. It can be "damaged" by other means - call it plagiarism, data laundering, copyright infringement, commoditization, losing distinctiveness (trademarks can be lost that way), impersonation, but whatever you call it, it's specifically not theft, neither legally nor logically. It was discussed a million times and trying to retrofit theft onto intellectual property is manipulation.

I truly hate how people try to worm their way out of these discussions with their "um actuallys". I'm extremely confident a majority of artists did not consent to this use of their work. You can define whatever you want or make whatever shitty legal argument you want, the AI companies knew what they were doing was unethical or they would have released some provenance with respect to their training set. This is very new and a legal grey area. I don't think we need to mince a lot of words to state that clearly the work of artists is being exploited here without credit, consent, or compensation. These models simply would not exist without alienated labor. These products are clearly intended to be a substitute for artists work. If it's determined to be legal, fine, but society doesn't have to pretend you're not a piece of shit for doing this stuff.

The OP is about physical museum heists. Any actuallys belong to those who are trying to bring the %current_event%-related snark into the discussion in the first place, especially while ignoring a pretty important distinction which hurts those discussions and tends to turn them into emotional shamefests with little substance.

I agree, people arguing in favor of these models deserve to feel shame. And you're right, I am emotional. In fact I'm outraged. If you have a scrap of empathy, you should be too.

This is missing the thrust of my argument. By stealing a physical painting you are removing the ability for other people to look at that painting. When a digital painting is used in the training of some AI model it is not removed from the internet. Anybody can still go look at that digital painting wherever it is posted. Nothing is being stolen from anyone in this scenario.

The argument then is that the AI model is stealing potential profits from the artist who posted the image. This also doesnt make sense because the artist is not charging to see that image. It is posted for anyone who has the link and a web browser to see it.

Artists make public portfolios to find work and get jobs. Being available to view publicly is not the same thing as the artist giving you permission to do whatever you want with their work. In fact, I saw a blurb under one of these posts from an artist that explicitly said they did not want their work used in any ai training, earlier today.

The problem that you're ignoring is that these models can substitute for the product these artists were making. Why go to a particular artist when you can train an AI model on their public portfolio and reproduce their style? That's the argument that this isn't fair use, it damages the market and reputation of the original artist.

Absolutely AI will change the market nobody is denying that.

Calling it theft or wanting to ban it is absolutely ridiculous though.

Technology changes markets. Photography changed the art market. The internet changed the art market. The printing press changed the art market.

Notice people still paint, do caligraphy, do linoleum block printing etc.

AI will not destroy art and im sure it will change the art market but thats just how things are.

It's theft.

Good argument, thanks for the nuance.

I've given plenty of nuance in comment after comment on this site. I'm tired of hearing the same slimey garbage over and and over and over again. "It's not theft. It's actually way more complex than that and artists have no right to be upset because they said the model was a database".

If this hurts the art community, that's the fault of the AI companies that scraped their work. If it's legal, I guess you can go and do it, but I'm not going to stop saying it's theft to your faces. AI has alienated a generation of artists from their work. You ought to at least feel bad about it.

Look, I am an artist. I was raised by artists. I live with and love many artists who work in many mediums. Some of them dont like AI some of them do.

The world changes. It is possible that the age of doing gig and illustration art online is coming to a close. I doubt it, but it is possible. Either way some people will have to switch professions or mediums. I definitely feel for those artists who will be effected by the rise of image generation more than I feel for knowledge workers who will lose their jobs to LLMs.

None of this makes it theft. You can say it as much as you like but that wont make it so.

There is always the danger with putting anything online that someone will come along and use it for something you disagree with. Many artists dont put any work online or only do so with caveats because of this. This is no different. Its just one of the risks of putting yourself out there.

I respect what you're saying here and I mostly agree. I still think there's an opportunity to push back on some of what I think is abusive and exploitative technology. I'm gonna stay mad about it. I do think it's theft in a way that using reference in art isn't and I hope we normalize making it unacceptable to automate the artistic process. That doesn't have to mean it's legally theft.

Someone call the University and shut down the art department. All of those students being trained off of examples from other artists before them are nothing more than thieves!

Not a single instance of theft but Stéphane Breitwieser is probably the most prolific art thief. I read Michael Finkel's 2023 book on the thefts and it was a riveting read.

Sadly, not even close to the biggest...

https://www.apollo-magazine.com/red-army-trophy-art-germany/

Also probably in contention is the plunder of the Aztecs by the Spanish.

And let's not forget all the things that the British Empire stole from its subjects across the world.

Or consider the Old Summer Palace in Beijing by Anglo-French forces during the second opium war.

Don't forget the Incas!

Ever seen The Monuments Men? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monuments_Men

No. Is it any good?

“In 1990, the estimated value of the stolen collection amounted to $200,000, but thirty years later, it exceeded half a billion”

Feels implausible. Maybe a typo.

Probably the theft of the Mona Lisa

A.I training models...

How is this big?

I thought that was the stealing of the Amber Room from Leningrad outskirts by Nazis.

Needless to say it was never recovered. Perhaps it has burned in transit or in 1945, perhaps somebody else is enjoying it to that day.

Disney

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