Artists Resale Right

Below is the full text of the statement made by Baroness Wilcox, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, on June 14, 2012.

COMMENT: As reported last week, the postcard campaign launched by art dealer Niall Fairhead in a bid to raise the threshold for the Artist's Resale Right has made progress, attracting more signatories for the online petition and eliciting answers from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

Close to 800 postcards in the Artist’s Resale Right campaign have already arrived at the Department of Culture, with more on the way.

A federal judge has declared the 1977 California Resale Royalty Act unconstitutional.

This week’s printed copy of ATG contains a postcard addressed to the Culture Secretary carrying the following message: “I oppose the extension of Artist’s Resale Right to works by deceased artists and request that the threshold which triggers it be raised from €1000 to €3000.”

THE Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) have announced that they will hand back undistributed Resale Right royalties after six years.

EVIDENCE that the trade is not taking the introduction of the beefed up Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) lightly is beginning to emerge.

THE European Commission Impact Study on the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) has not been able to establish how far the Right’s introduction is linked to the recent decline in the European art market.

ALL may not be lost as the Artists' Resale Right is extended on January 1.

A GROUP of American artists have filed class action lawsuits against Christie’s and Sotheby’s complaining they have violated the 1976 California Resale Royalty Act.

As the spectre of droit de suite for artists’ heirs looms large over the British art market, the main copyright and licensing collecting agency in the United States is pushing to see the debate over artists’ resale rights revived on Capitol Hill.

ENCOURAGING words from Downing Street and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in the past year gave us hope that finally something would be done about the impending threat to the British art market of the extension of the Artists’ Resale Right to the estates of artists who have been dead for less than 70 years.

THE Society of London Art Dealers (SLAD) have reinforced the claim by the British Antique Dealers Association that the extension of the Artist’s Resale Right next year will have a significant effect on business.

AUSTRALIAN dealers and auctioneers are joining forces to fight the current Artist’s Resale Right scheme introduced to the country seven months ago.

HAVING appeared to wash their hands of their obligation to undertake a study of the effect of the Artist’s Resale Right, the European Commission has finally agreed that they will look into the matter early in 2011.

EXTENDING the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) to the estates of dead artists after 2012 poses a serious threat to the 60,000 jobs the UK art industry supports. That is the view of the view of the British Art Market Federation (BAMF), which is calling on Brussels to delay the move and allow all member states to adopt the derogation until ARR is accepted globally.

KEY to BAMF’s cause is the European Commission’s (EC) failure to follow the terms of its own Directive.

THE Federation of European Art Gallery Associations has added its voice to the debate over the Artist’s Resale Right, demanding the European Commission carry out the promised impact study immediately.

THE European Commission has reneged on a legal undertaking to review the effects of the Artist’s Resale Right in the UK before it is extended to the estates of dead artists.

AUSTRALIA has reversed its previous government’s decision and introduced its own version of the Artist’s Resale Right.