1TB hard drive art exhibit contains $5 million worth of illegally downloaded material

As someone who only rarely has any measured interest in visiting an art museum, I'll confess that I leave most paintings, sculptures, and other forms of artistic expression to be interpreted by people who know much more about it than I. That being said, the exhibit titled 5 Million Dollars, 1 Terabyte on display online via the Art 404 gallery still strikes a chord with me. The entire work consists of a single, high-capacity external hard drive that houses approximately $5 million worth of illegally downloaded files (PDF). 

The files on board the beefy drive range from Adobe programs and font collections to the entire library of Nintendo 64 games and 124GB worth of music. All of the media stored on the drive was downloaded illegally, and the artist even provides a handy list of the media in question along with a link and an estimated value of the goods. Of course, there no way to confirm that the exhibit actually contains all the items listed, but perhaps that's the point of the work itself. 

The majority of the drive's $5 million estimated worth comes from approximately 133GB of literature, worth in the neighborhood of $3 million. The drive itself is not much to look at, but it holds a nearly immeasurably quantity of entertainment and productivity potential. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. 

[via The Next Web]

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