Archive of Henry Lydiate‘s Artlaw column, published in Art Monthly since 1976. Have a legal question about your career? Check our Directory or send us a legal query.
40 Years of Collecting
During 2024, the UK’s Design and Artists Copyright Society, DACS, celebrates forty years of operations. DACS is a not for profit share rights management organisation that champions, protects and manages the intellectual property rights of visual…
Digital Rights Management
The French Ministry of Culture is currently embarking on research into ‘the permanence of artistic royalties through smart contracts and other means, and on how blockchains communicate with each other’. Launched in January 2023, this initiative focuses…
Compliance
Lawsuits by artists against dealers are as rare as hens’ teeth, chiefly because most solo artists have few if any resources to challenge wrongdoings by dealers invariably better resourced in the art ecosystem. Which is why artists have pooled…
Anti-Flipping
‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’ is the title of a remarkable and unique online selling exhibition held by Christie’s from 21 July to 21 August 2020. Dedicated to the promotion of works by ‘22 young, emerging…
Sale or Resale?
When is a sale a resale? The distinction and difference can be significant in the context of artists’ legal right to receive royalty payments as percentages of the price paid when their works are resold in the…
Artist’s Resale Right: Ten Years After
‘It is a well known melancholy truth that the tribe of auctioneers, connoisseurs, and picture dealers have monopolised the trade of pictures, and made it a matter of ridicule to purchase any modern production,…
Global Thinking
Artists’ bargaining power in the global art ecosystem is weak or non existent because the vast majority operate as freelance solo practitioners and, unlike other creative artists, visual artists only occasionally collectivise to create common or shared interest…
Enforcement
Henry Moore’s daughter Mary Moore together with Maggi Hambling recently attracted media attention by publicly voicing their concerns about the failure of UK based art market professionals to pay the artist’s resale right (ARR). Such non compliant dealers and…
Artists Resale Right: 4th Year Report
February 2010 marks the fourth anniversary of the introduction into UK law of the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR). Invented by the French around a century ago, where is it known as droit de suite,…
Droit de Suite (1996)
On 13 March 1996 the European Commission published a proposal for a Directive to harmonise the law throughout the 15 member states of the European Union concerning artists’ resale royalty right, often called the ‘droit de…
Second Year Review
The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) is currently conducting a post implementation review of the first two years’ operation of the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR), introduced into UK law in February 2006 and throughout the rest of…
First Semester Report
On February 14, 2006, the UK Artists’ Resale Right (ARR) came into operation, after a year long media campaign on behalf of UK art market professionals opposing its introduction, and a media campaign led by the Design…
The Artists’ Campaign for Droit de Suite
On 17 May 1993 a unique and important meeting was held to give artists the chance to hear about droit de suite (the visual artist’s resale royalty right) and form their own views…
Parliamentary Report: The Market for Art
The introduction into UK law from January 2006 of the Artists’ Resale Right saw a flurry of activity and media coverage early in 2005 including newspaper articles, radio programmes, letters to national newspaper editors,…
The Artist’s Resale Right Regulations 2006
On December 15 2005, the final draft of the Artist’s Resale Right Regulations 2006 were placed before parliament by the UK government for approval by resolution of each House of Parliament, with the aim…
Artists Resale Right
Half a dozen pieces over three decades mark the progress of artists' resale royalty right legislation in Europe, California and the UK. A campaign by artists lobbying for the introduction of this economic right in the UK…
Resale Royalty
Why Resale Royalties? The California Resale Royalties Act took effect on January 1, 1977 and gives visual artists the right to participate in any profit derived from their works of fine art. It is the first piece of…
Copyright & Resale Right
Harmonisation of the laws of the 15 EU States, aimed at creating a level economic playing field, usually takes years to achieve: it requires at least two successful readings in the EU Parliament, and ratification by…