Artists in Australia to benefit from resale royalty rights

Last Thursday the Australian Parliament passed resale royalty rights legislation for visual artists. The Arts Minister Peter Garrett described it as a "red letter day for Australia's visual artists". The introduction of such a law was an election commitment made by the Australian Labor Party during its 2007 campaign. It follows almost twenty five years of on-again off-again debate in Australia about the merits of resale royalty rights for visual artists.

Under the new law artists will receive a proportion of the proceeds when their works are re-sold. The system only applies to works first sold after the law's introduction, which is expected to occur by mid-2010. It is also limited to sales over $1,000. The royalty will be payable until seventy years after the death of the artist, as is the case with other forms of copyright. The rate will be five percent of the sale price although administration costs will also be deducted before the final payment is made to artist. The scheme will be administered by a central authority as is the case for copyright royalties in the music and publishing industries.

The new law will bring Australia into line with European Union member countries. It is expected to be particularly beneficial for Indigenous visual artists in Australia. It is in the Indigenous art market that some of the most extreme cases of price inflation that have failed to benefit the original creator have occurred. While the new legislation is not going to solve all of the financial problems facing visual artists in Australia, it may help some to keep the proverbial wolf from the door and allow them to spend more time on their creative practice.

Photo: Šrotíř David

Australia signs up to cultural diversity

Australia’s Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett, today announced that Australia was signing up to the United Nations Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. It is the 101st country to do so.

The Convention came into force in 2007. Australia, under the government of John Howard, was one of six countries that did not support ratification of the Convention when it was originally adopted in 2005. In 2007 the government of Kevin Rudd committed to ratifying and in September 2008 called for public submissions in response to the planned ratification. “This is an important step in support of our diverse cultural heritage and a vital artistic life for our citizens”, Mr. Garrett said.

The Convention has nine stated objectives including "to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions" and "to create the conditions for cultures to flourish and to freely interact in a mutually beneficial manner". It also aims "to encourage dialogue among cultures with a view to ensuring wider and balanced cultural exchanges in the world in favour of intercultural respect and a culture of peace" and "to foster interculturality in order to develop cultural interaction in the spirit of building bridges among peoples."

Eyebrows were raised when Australia opted to abstain from the 2005 ratification vote. Some critics of the convention see in it an attempt by countries such as France and Canada to limit the global power of US culture such as Hollywood. The most prominent opponent of the agreement was the USA and it has still not signed up. Nor is it likely to do so in the near future. The main sticking points are the articles (five and six) that allow signatories to introduce measures aimed at protecting "cultural expressions" they feel are threatened by those of other countries. The US argues these provisions are open to abuse. They may also cause conflict with the free-trade commitments made by member countries of the World Trade Organisation.

Australia's signing up to the Convention is not going to shake the world of international culture and law but it is another welcome sign that the Rudd Government is putting the country's multilateral relations on a more even keel after the arrogant indifference of the Howard years.

Click here to read the Convention

Making cash from art

Australia is close to introducing a Resale Royalty Right for visual artists. Former rock-star turned Arts Minister, Peter Garrett, introduced draft legislation to the national parliament in November 2008 and the relevant committee has given the proposed law conditional approval. Parliament has not passed the draft law. Under the proposal five percent of the sale price would go to the creator of the work as royalties. There is no cap on the royalty amount but no royalty is payable on the first sale. But Garrett has fallen out of favour with supporters and opponents of resale royalty rights. Visual artists feel that the scheme has been watered down to please auction houses and dealers while art sales industry maintains its deep-seated opposition to the administrative burden that comes with such a scheme. In Australia the most howling discrepancies between the price paid to the artists and the prices on the secondary market have occurred in the case of indigenous artists and it is Aboriginal painters who probably stand to do best out of the new scheme. The market for Australian aboriginal artwork has grown very rapidly over the least two decades and accusations of unscrupulous, exploitative and fraudulent activities are rife. The introduction of a resale royalty right is not going to stamp out crook practices but it may help make artmaking a little more lucrative for Australia’s Indigenous artists and is for that reason alone worth supporting. Further info: http://www.arts.gov.au/artists/resale_royalty

© Brian Long 2009