“So much attention was paid to the needs of visual and media artists in the platform document that was collectively assembled by the Creators Copyright Coalition yet there is so little in this current bill that addresses those concerns,” said Julianna Yau, CARFAC Ontario Board Secretary.

As an example, jurisdictions like the State of California are embracing the resale right or “droit de suite” which gives visual and media artists a right to a percentage of the sale price that is paid to an artist when one of their works is resold by a gallery or other purchaser. North America has generally lagged behind the European Union which in 2001 issued a directive requiring member states to institute the “droit de suite” right in their copyright policies. In the United Kingdom alone the Designers and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) has collected £5.2 million (approximately $12million) in resale royalties for over 1500 artists since February 2006.

It is also disappointing that wording around the Exhibition Right was not strengthened to oblige publicly funded exhibitors to pay visual and media artists for all uses of their work. This is the sort of revision that will likely be allowable during the upcoming consultative

For more information about Bill C-61 visit:
http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/crp-prda.nsf/en/h_rp01153e.html

For more information about the Creators Copyright Coalition’s Platform on the Revision of Copyright visit:
http://www.creatorscopyright.ca/documents/platform-jan08.html

CARFAC Ontario is the association of professional visual and media artists in Ontario. We have worked for 40 years to promote the material and moral welfare and rights of visual artists, including legal, economic, and physical health. We believe that artists, like professionals in other fields, should be paid for their work and share equitably in profits from their art practice. The work of CARFAC Ontario is to develop policies, publications and services that assist artists, galleries, curators, art patrons and anyone with an interest in creating a society that supports visual and media
artists. Working, professional visual and media artists actively govern CARFAC Ontario. As artists, we understand the needs of artists and have developed services and programs to assist artists at every stage of their careers.

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• Ontario government values art & culture, but where is it in schools?

Getty Images

• Art Law Blog picks up on Getty Images’s acquisition by Hellman & Friedman for $2.4 billion.
• Howard Knopf comments on Getty Images’s cease & desist letters

Resale Rights

• The Intellectual Property office in the UK has released a report it commissioned into the impact on Artist’s Resale Rights on the UK art market
• An alternative report, carried out by an art market specialist was also recently published
• An article “Row over resale right grows – Collecting societies refute findings of latest survey” that outlines collecting societies/copyright collectives response to the alternative report.
• Resale Royalty Rights for Australia’s Visual Artists (PDF)
• The Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill to insert a new, stand-alone part to establish a resale right for visual artists in New Zealand.

Orphan Works

• CAPIC on The Orphan Works Debate in the US
• Orphan works bill clears Senate committee, may soon find home