The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement is a contract to do just that - for the artist to earn royalties from resale (if the price of the work has increased) and to have some control over public exhibition even after a work passes from owner to owner. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Artist%27s_Reserved_Rights...

It was first published in 1971. Needless to say, collectors and galleries don’t love it, but some artists continue to use it.

It warps and stifles artists and the art world. An artist knows that only maybe 5% of artists manage to survive financially off their work, and maybe 1% become wealthy. Knowing that there is that lottery ticket, and that the odds can be boosted by catering to the whims of the ultra-rich and engaging in their cynical high-end social politics, that's hard to resist for many who are otherwise looking at being forced out of a beloved career or living in poverty. Many take the bait without realizing they're doing so, or somehow attempt to split the difference. Either way, it eventually causes some very fundamental psychic distress, and both artist and output suffer.

Is that so different from the world of startups?

Startup employees largely have better working conditions (even those who let themselves get conned into unpaid overtime) and softer landings. I remember a retrospective on a photo-sharing startup did the rounds a couple of years ago: it was a failure as a business but the developers were well-paid and able to walk into fresh software jobs at a good salary.

It was founders, not employees, I had in mind. It's a massive longshot, survivor bias clouds our thinking, and you need connections.

At least we in tech can easily practice our craft outside of the startup world and remain financially secure.

Not as much as you would think. Many paintings don’t gain huge value until after death, and many paintings don’t gain huge value until after the first sale (when the artist makes money).

Tell Jeff Koons that.

This is part of the law in some countries. Usually it's referred to as Artist's Resale Rights.