After all the debating (examples here and here), consulting (here) and petitioning (reported here), it looks like the extension of the Artist's Resale Right to the works of deceased artists will take effect from 1 January 2012.
The Artist’s Resale Right (Amendment) Regulations 2011 (SI 2011/2873) were laid before the UK Parliament on 2 December 2011. These amend the Artist’s Resale Right Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/346) and bring the UK in line with the European legislation (Directive 2001/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2001 on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art).
New Regulation 10 will read as follows:
"Resale right may only be exercised in respect of the sale of a work where its
author is— (a)living at the date of the sale and is at that date a national of—
(i)an EEA state; or
(ii)a state the legislation of which permits resale right protection for authors from EEA states and their successors in title; or
(b)deceased at the date of the sale and, at the date of the author’s death, the author was a national of a state falling within paragraph (a)i) or (ii).”
There is a Final Impact Assessment which accompanies the new Regulations, which apparently provides a full evaluation of the effect that the amended regulation will have on UK businesses and users. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to access these via the legislation.gov.uk website. There will be another update once these are available.
Update
Ah ha - some helpful guidance from the UKIPO!
So, I have been told that the new 2011 Regulations do not extend Resale Right to deceased artists. In fact, the existing UK Regulations (2006) will automatically extend the Right to deceased artists from the beginning of next year.
The Regulations laid on 2 December address the issue of the nationality of those people entitled to resale royalties. The IPO advises that the original UK implementation did not match the original Directive, so some corrections were needed.
I hope to have a closer look at the law this weekend. Another update once I have had a chance to digest it. With thanks to the IPO.
The new Regulations are here.
The impact assessment should be accessible here.
The Directive is here.
Simone
ReplyDeleteIt might be useful if we clarify things here.
The Regulations laid in Parliament on the 2nd Dec do not extend Resale Right to deceased artists. The original Directive (from 2001) requires that we include deceased artists from 2012 at the latest, so the existing UK regulations (from 2006) already include those provisions, and they will automatically take effect from 1 Jan 2012.
The Regulations laid last week actually address a different issue, regarding the nationality of those people entitled to resale royalties. The original UK implementation did not match the original Directive, so we needed to make some corrections. One of the corrections (that you have highlighted, part 10) does slightly change the nationality requirements for heirs, but the provisions requiring payments to be made to heirs from 2012 are already part of UK law, and would come into force on the 1st Jan regardless of whether or not these latest regulations were made.
We hope that helps disentangle these two issues.
Intellectual Property Office (IPO)
@The_IPO (http://twitter.com/the_ipo)