“Shazam for Art” Yanked from App Store After Data Theft Controversy

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Magnus, the much-praised mobile app that branded itself as the “Shazam for art,” is now off the market, following news that it operated using information grabbed from other art world databases as well as copyright claims by three German galleries. Apple has removed the free app from its store, as Artnet News reported, after a five-month run.

Created by Magnus Resch, the 31-year-old entrepreneur and author of the non-guide to art gallery management — who, yes, named the app after himself — Magnus prides itself on its mission “to democratize access to the art world.” Similar to music recognition technology, it allows users to take a photograph of an artwork in New York, London, and Berlin galleries with a mobile device and purports to deliver not only the name of the artwork and artist, but also its current price as well as the artist’s previous exhibitions and similar artworks. On its still-running website, its developers write that they spent “years of tireless data compilation and manual data entry” to form “the world’s most comprehensive art database.”

That, apparently, is not entirely true, unless you define tireless compilation as theft. According to Artnet, which maintains an auction price database of its own, ArtFacts.net and Artsy both found that some of the prices and gallery listings on the app were directly swiped from their own databases. The former filed a complaint with Apple showing information from the ArtFact database that appears verbatim on the app, apparently including mistakes. Three German galleries, including Wagner + Partner, also say that Magnus had taken and published their images and pricing information on the platform without their permission.

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