[lmm]

>What’s your definition of “no use”? I’m quite confused by that. When I was last walking through a museum I felt tremendous joy and very much loved looking at everything. That’s a use, right? That makes those are pieces useful. It should be quite obvious that things capable of doing that acquire value.

But an original and a copy of a great picture inspire just as much joy when looking at them. Yet one is treated as far more valuable than the other. So something's funny there.

[dsuth]

Original artworks have greater value due to scarcity. It's pretty simple supply/demand - if everyone wants artwork from a certain artist, those pieces become more valuable. The same reason the value of artwork tends to spike after an artists death - no more artworks will be produced, so there is a definite cap on the amount of art.

Mayor Bloomberg's statement that he intends to target Banksy's artworks to destroy them will make them very valuable indeed, in a "last chance to see" way.

[lmm]

Just making something scarce doesn't inherently make it valuable; there needs to be some reason it's "better" than non-scarce equivalents.