Not art, but Blender is the biggest example of "buying out for the public" that comes to mind.
Blender used to be proprietary software, and when their company went bankrupt, they crowdfunded 100,000 euros to release their code as open-source. This was a decade ago. Blender is now the most popular open-source 3D animation software today.
Blender used to be proprietary software, and when their company went bankrupt, they crowdfunded 100,000 euros to release their code as open-source. This was a decade ago. Blender is now the most popular open-source 3D animation software today.