One of the pitfalls of viewing art as an asset is that works of art are financially inert. Land can be rented; commodities consumed, stocks pay dividends and bonds have a stream of interest. Art’s only value is what the next buyer is willing to pay. Some firms have recently grown up around the idea of lending art to individuals for a fee. Now comes word that Samsung is building screens that could make the digital display of art works possible. Should this technology take off, some of the thorny problems surrounding artists rights to the growing value of their work might be resolved with display fees similar to digital music providing revenue to the owners of image rights.

Reuters reports on the development:

The Korean electronics giant is developing a new high resolution LCD screen for displaying artwork electronically in homes and offices. These “new digital canvases”, as Samsung puts it, will help the company tap into the $60 billion annual art market, one third of which is based in the United States.  “It’s very significant market opportunity,” Scott Birnbaum, vice president of new business development for Samsung Semiconductor, said in an interview.

Samsung is Calling Fine Artists (Reuters)