As reported here, and in my article in Entertainment Law Review at the beginning of this year, for a number of years now there has been a lot of debate in the UK over the Artist's Resale Right. For those who don't know, this right allows artists to receive a royalty every time their works are resold through auction houses, galleries and art dealers. At present, in the UK, the right applies to the sale of the works of living artists. The final step, in order for the Resale Right directive (2001/84/EC) to be fully implemented in the UK is for the right to also be applied to the works of deceased artists. This is expected to happen from 1 January 2012.
However, having no doubt been disappointed by the UK government's previous action in delaying full implementation of the directive, and aware of the ongoing opposition of the British Art Market to full implementaion, DACS (the Design and Artists Copyright Society), who distributes the Artist’s Resale Right royalties to artists, has sent out a call-to-arms seeking a show of support for the artists.
DACS is asking people to sign a "Petition for Artist's Resale Right" to show their support for the right. The petition states as follows:
However, having no doubt been disappointed by the UK government's previous action in delaying full implementation of the directive, and aware of the ongoing opposition of the British Art Market to full implementaion, DACS (the Design and Artists Copyright Society), who distributes the Artist’s Resale Right royalties to artists, has sent out a call-to-arms seeking a show of support for the artists.
DACS is asking people to sign a "Petition for Artist's Resale Right" to show their support for the right. The petition states as follows:
We, the undersigned, welcome the full implementation of the Artist’s Resale Right from 1 January 2012. We call on the UK Government and European Commission to recognise the importance of this Right in supporting artists, their families and beneficiaries.So, if you feel strongly about the need for the Artist’s Resale Right to be extended to the works of deceased artists, or just want to show your support for artists – you can find the petition here.
The royalties from the Right will provide desperately needed funding for artists’ families and beneficiaries, who inherit the burden of managing an artist’s estate, including the costs of storage, conservation, cataloguing, research and restoration as well as identifying works.
In its call, DACS points out that "There are far greater costs associated with selling works of art that dwarf the impact of the resale right. When Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man I sold for £58 million in the UK in February 2010, it earned £7 million in buyer’s premium for the auction house. Compare this to the £2.4 million in resale royalties which were generated by the entire UK art market during the whole of 2010."
There is considerable irony in the DACS statement "The royalties from the Right will provide desperately needed funding for artists’ families and beneficiaries, who inherit the burden of managing an artist’s estate, including the costs of storage, conservation, cataloguing, research and restoration as well as identifying works."
ReplyDeleteEstates which hold on to the majority of the works of an artist face greater costs for storage, conservation etc, but will receive much less in royalties because few of the works they are responsible for are on the open market, whereas estates where the royalty revenues are high because their works are circulating in the market will have few if any costs to defray. This is hardly a strong justification for widening the scope of the scheme.
DACS collects this money, but does it actually get to the artists? At the end of 2009 they were sitting on 7 million GBP in the bank, which was an increase of 1.6 million GBP since the end of 2008.
ReplyDeleteI don't get a warm fuzzy feeling that this proposed change is going to greatly improve the situation of most artist's estates. Is there a petition against this change?
1 - DACS' submission
ReplyDeleteto the post-implementation review conducted by the UK Intellectual Property Office provides further detail to their arguments for extending the law to the heirs and beneficiaries of deceased artists. But, whether the artist is dead or alive, should s/he not continue to be rewarded for the work – in respect of which others continue to benefit?
2 - I can't speak well to numbers, but the Financial Report that you have linked appears to recognise those funds as payable to artists. In so far as collections for the resale right, DACS clearly states that it takes 15% as an administrative fee. Whether this is right or wrong is another question – a complete answer to which I guess would require an audit of their system.
> But, whether the artist is dead
ReplyDelete> or alive, should s/he not continue
> to be rewarded for the work --- in
> respect of which others continue
> to benefit?
This is the silly argument which has led us down the slippery slope to practically eternal copyright durations. There is no doubt in my mind that artists should eternally be rewarded with our respect for creating beautiful things which enrich society. The question, however, is whether society is enriched or impoverished by any particular incremental change to copyright law which is proposed. The answer to this question, unfortunately, cannot be determined objectively because that would require running at least two and preferably more copies of our universe in parallel and comparing the results (and even objectively quantifying the results of this impossible experiment is not possible).
Consider the two thought experiment extremes: (1) where any original scribble produced by a schoolchild is rewarded with a subsidized payment of millions of dollars (obviously such a society would collapse economically), or (2), a society where artists are forbidden by law to economically profit from any original creations, no matter how great a masterpiece (obviously the rates of creation of at least some kinds of original works would be greatly diminished). Somewhere between these two extremes is a society where creative productivity is maximized, but we cannot know where it lies, and even if I personally have strong opinions where we are are currently, relative to that ideal, I am uncertain if it is very useful to try to argue about it.
But to focus more clearly on your reply, Simone, whether this change benefits or impoverishes society depends on how many artists would change their behavior because of it (frankly I doubt that many artists choose to create solely based on an extremely small chance that their heirs will get a large payment in the future because of this change) and how many art purchasers would change their behavior because of it (by deciding not to buy as much art because the return on this investment is now lowered by the change). Looks to me like not much would be changed about the overall amount of art produced or consumed: however, DACS will certainly profit from this.
I am a Australian visual artist. Resale royalties are, for all but a handful of artists who have already sold a lot of artworks in the FIRST place, a useless or harmful idea--- for artists.
ReplyDeleteIt is little more than a compulsory right to management fees for the collection societies that endlessly lobby for it. (And extra supplementary payments to those ,mostly dead,artists most favored by the market.)
It is also repeatedly claimed by the lobbyists for these schemes that 'over 50 countries worldwide have already adopted the EU scheme'. The EU's official Europa website on this matter states:
"A letter was sent to Member States on March 1, 2006 requesting that they provide a list of third countries which meet these requirements and that they also provide evidence of application. To date the Commission has not been supplied with evidence for any third country which demonstrates that they qualify for inclusion on this list. "
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/resale-right/resale-right_en.htm
I ask you all to read our post on Professor Jeremy Phillips 1709 blog
http://the1709blog.blogspot.com/2010/12/artist-resale-royalty-harmonisation-and.html