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In the mid-1990s, when artists first started to explore what could be done on the World Wide Web, they soon realized that it would not be just a canvas but a medium in itself. Internet art was born as a sort of neo-avant-garde movement, in which the name incorporates the famous dot that denotes its allegiance to computer culture instead of art history. Consequently, when artists Natalie Bookchin and Alexei Shulgin wrote the manifesto Introduction to net. art (1994-1999), they declared this art independent of any institution and saw the Internet as “a medium for production, publication, distribution, promotion, dialogue, consumption and critique.” 1 It seemed, then, that it would be possible for an artist to break free from the traditional art system, bypass the gallery and the museum and directly reach his or her audience and, eventually, collectors.

The dot-com bubble burst and many utopian ideas about the Internet came to an abrupt end, and some years later, the initial interest that museums and collectors had for this new kind of art faded away; however, neither the Internet nor net art had lost any of its potential. The web 2.0 introduced new ways of distributing and consuming content online, and new forms of artistic creation began to emerge, along with new ideas about selling net-based artworks. One of the most prolific artists to create Internet art while exploring ways of selling his work in the art market is Carlo Zanni (La Spezia, Italy, 1975). 2 Early in his career, he initiated research on creating a market for net art by organizing a three-day chat-based discussion under the title P2P_ $: Peer to Peer $ elling Processes for net_things (2002), with the …