We haven’t seen Techcrunch.com cover the new gTLD program very much but today they did and picked out a story surrounding one applicant for .Art, deviantART
The TechCrunch article covers the letter sent to ICANN by deviantART’s as to why it deserves a “community designation” in the application process, saying:
“We are on the cusp of an extraordinary opportunity with the simple use of a single word: a virtual place within the Internet for the arts and a virtual palace to the arts built site-by-site by millions of artists and art institutions each with an individualized artistic contribution gathered around the simple namespace of ‘.ART.’”
The letter adds that if the domain is exploited commercially, “it will only occasionally and haphazardly designate the arts themselves. It will not be a welcomed location for the arts.”
“That may seem like an unusual argument coming from a for-profit business, but deviantART has created a new subsidiary called Dadotart (apparently that’s standard procedure when applying to manage a new top level domain), and it says it would create a policy board of “artists and art institutions” that would establish the standards for when the .art designation can be used.”
“deviantART says ICANN is currently deciding whether it deserves the community designation, which would give it priority in the application process. The initial signs may have not been entirely positive, as the letter states, “We believe preservation of the arts is at risk based upon the results of the initial community evaluations made by ICANN that cle
As TechCrunch said; Here’s the full letter:
[Submitted to ICANN May 21, 2014 by deviantART on behalf of its applicant, Dadotart, Inc., for the .ART gTLD]
SAVE DOT ART
ICANN has a choice: it can promote the arts or destroy their common identity.
“.ART “ can become an authentic Internet address for the arts and represent its community. We are on the cusp of an extraordinary opportunity with the simple use of a single word: a virtual place within the Internet for the arts and a virtual palace to the arts built site-by-site by millions of artists and art institutions each with an individualized artistic contribution gathered around the simple namespace of “.ART.” The .ART gTLD can become a touchstone of world culture and contribute transformative vision across all boundaries.
But left to pure commercial exploitation, .ART will stand as a complete failure. It will only occasionally and haphazardly designate the arts themselves. It will not be a welcomed location for the arts. The impact of the worldwide abuse of a beloved term through disjointed, disorganized, and random designations – – completely irrelevant to its meaning and associations – – would be an irretrievable tragedy.
There are two applicants for .ART, which have elected community designation, DeviantArt and e-flux who mutually support each other’s applications. Eight other, purely commercial, entities and individuals have chosen to oppose or stand in the way of that joint effort.
We believe preservation of the arts is at risk based upon the results of the initial community evaluations made by ICANN that clearly disfavor their approval with a resulting and evident bias towards commercialization.
DeviantArt has over 31 million registered members and an audience exceeding 60 million unique visitors a month all drawn to the arts. It is one of the top 150 Internet sites in the world measured by traffic. E-flux is a network of over 100,000 art institutions and professional artists, curators, and practitioners.
DeviantArt and e-flux are committed. We stand prepared to convene a Policy Board of the most passionate and essential artists and art institutions to first debate and then establish standards for the use of the .ART address. As representatives of the community of the arts, we are prepared to initiate a gTLD for the arts, by the arts, and with the arts.
We call upon the ICANN Board to intervene on behalf of the arts. We ask the Board to recognize the .ART gTLD’s unique and substantial value as a world cultural monument and to dedicate its management to trusted, proven organizations that have introduced and guided the arts to the World Wide Web since its inception.
We call upon ICANN to set aside its unlimited and seemingly unrestrained commercialization of the Internet name space and embrace the opportunity that it hardcoded into its guidebook for applicants to self-identify as a community. ICANN must choose to promote the arts rather than destroy their common identity.
We call upon the Government Advisory Committee to the ICANN Board to safeguard the arts as a universal human right in its shared culture. We call upon the GAC to insist upon the recognition of valid community interests in the assignment of gTLDs by ICANN’s management in line with the GAC’s own requests to ICANN at the Singapore meetings held in March of this year.
And through DeviantART we call upon the world community of the arts to make itself known and rise to the defense of its own integrity and good name.””
Joseph Peterson says
Hogwash!
They seriously “believe preservation of the arts is at risk” unless DeviantArt.com can monopolize .ART? That’s either disingenuous or insane.
Since when did DeviantArt.com become the arbiter of artistic expression? Last time I checked, museums weren’t curated by them. Nor do artists pay union dues to DeviantArt.com or E-flux.com (whom I’d never heard of).
So unless DeviantArt.com takes possession of .ART, then the extension “will only occasionally and haphazardly designate the arts themselves. It will not be a welcomed location for the arts. The impact of the worldwide abuse of a beloved term through disjointed, disorganized, and random designations – – completely irrelevant to its meaning and associations – – would be an irretrievable tragedy.
Allowing people to freely choose a mixture of different uses for an extension … My God, what a tragedy! Assuredly, that would destroy human art forever. After all, as we know, art was destroyed during the past 25 years by participating in a “disjointed, disorganized, and random designation” such as .COM or .ORG — tainted by neighboring websites that weren’t all about art. How did artists survive?
One thing above all must be prevented! Human beings — artists or otherwise — should not be allowed to utter a word like “art” without permission from a for-profit website like DeviantArt.com and its cohorts.
When was greed ever aired with such lofty hypocrisy?
By the way, DeviantArt.com is hardly a mainstream art website. We’re not talking about the Louvre here — not even a representative group of professional artists.
\\\\\ MillionsOf.Info ///// says
.art is one of the few new gTLDs that could become a success
Grim says
Apart from the original argument, artists are better off being on social art sites like DevintArt, rather than striking it out on their own with a .ART site that, if they’re very lucky, might see one or two visitors each day. Even FaceBook is a better option for artists wanting more exposure, due to the social sharing of artists that Friends ‘like’.
Striking it out on your own as an artist even with a .COM… the only way your website and more importantly, your art will get noticed, is if YOU’RE ALREADY ‘noticed’. One good example of a contemporary artist whose site and art are successful is MarkRyden[dot]com. But the vast majority of artists will always fall into the ‘starving’ category, and having a .ART site isn’t going to change that.
\\\\\ MillionsOf.Info ///// says
I don’t say they will have lost of visits (.com always will be the number one) I only say that many .art domains may be sold
\\\\\ MillionsOf.Info ///// says
post edit: … LOTS of visits …