I just recently found out about this and plan to add the clause to the sales contracts for all my paintings. I will post links as I find more info about the law. Basically, this allows the artist to be paid a percentage each time the artwork is sold. SWEET!!! I am now looking for an example of the clause in a contract….if you know it, please post.
Droit de suite (resale royalty right)
Many countries have enacted some form of droit de suite, an economic right entitling visual artist to share in the proceeds each time their works are resold. The resale right has a double premise. One is that works of fine art, whose value typically lies in an original or limited edition, are under-rewarded by copyright whose economics are driven by the prospect of mass distribution. the other is that artist who sell their works at starvation prices should be allowed to share in the work’s increased value on resale. As Professor David Vaver has observed, “In truth, the droit de suite s exceptional in a scheme either of copyright of author’s right: it does not relate to the use of the work, but rather to the obtaining of a share of the profits on resale. Nor is it a right to exclude or to receive compensation on use”
Focus: New artist resale royalty scheme
13 February 2009
In brief: The Federal Government has introduced draft legislation to create a scheme under which visual artists will receive a royalty on commercial resales of their works. Creators of artworks including paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs stand to receive a 5 per cent royalty on all resales over $1000. Partner Jim Dwyer (view CV) and Senior Associate Marina Lloyd Jones report on this development.
Resale Royalty Rights >>
by Peter Garrett MP
The painter John Olsen once remarked, ‘On the resale of art, everyone else makes money, but the artist is forgotten’.[1] For a decade the Howard Government has been fudging around the proposal that artists should be entitled to a small percentage of the sale price of their works when the original work is resold, known as a ‘resale royalty’.
Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists: Discussion Paper
The New Zealand government has been examining international developments relating to a resale royalty right, and the possible impact of applying such a right in New Zealand. As part of this project, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage has prepared a discussion paper. This discussion paper provides an overview of these international developments, and looks at a number of options that could form the basis of a resale royalty right scheme in New Zealand.
HiBrenda, Great Post…
We a resale rights law in California (the Resale Royalties Act of 1976), so I recently started a company (SecuritizedArts.com) to deal with enforcing it for artists. I would love feedback — your opinion of the site, idea, etc.
If what I’m doing can help you, that’d really make me happy. The way I’ve set up the company, repurchase rights are extended to ALL artists via our custom option contracts, regardless of sale price, enforceable privately (as a sort of co-op group), instead of relying on a mandated, toothless law.
Some benefits of our approach are:
it is pro-artist, rather than pro patron;
It allows artists to track and control their body of work;
it strengthens the enforcement of an otherwise “toothless” law;
it extends rights to all sales, regardless of price level;
it creates “liquidity” (facilitating sales) in a traditionally opaque market;
it allows low-income buyers to participate — artists can place work with non-traditional buyers later buying it back when conditions are favorable, at no loss in value to their potential estate
it provides artist with legacy management for both heirs and institutions.
I’d love to get the word out if you think it’s worthwhile.
Best wishes,
Andrew Richard
San Diego, California