The Antiques Trade Gazette bubbles over in frustration at the UK government‘s response to the impending extension of the artist’s resale royalty “to the estates of artists who have been dead for less than 70 years:”
Whatever came before, it is this extension that dealers, in particular, most fear, and with reason: Picasso, Matisse, Moore and Bacon are just some of the names who will soon qualify. Meanwhile the Modern print specialists must be wringing their hands in despair. However, the government seemed on side, a reassuring position in light of the renewed vigour across the Channel in France – birthplace of the Resale Right – to do away with the levy, or at least limit it to living artists.
The British Art Market Needs the Government’s Support Right Now (Antiques Trade Gazette)
I am a Australian visual artist. Resale royalties are, for all but a handful of artists who have already sold a lot of artworks in the FIRST place, a useless or harmful idea, for artists.
It is little more than a compulsory right to management fees for the collection societies that endlessly lobby for it.
It is also repeatedly claimed by the lobbyists for these schemes that ‘over 50 countries worldwide have already adopted the EU scheme’. The EU’s official Europa website on this matter states:
“A letter was sent to Member States on March 1, 2006 requesting that they provide a list of third countries which meet these requirements and that they also provide evidence of application. To date the Commission has not been supplied with evidence for any third country which demonstrates that they qualify for inclusion on this list. ”
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/resale-right/resale-right_en.htm
I ask you to read our post on Professor Jeremy Phillips 1709 blog
http://the1709blog.blogspot.com/2010/12/artist-resale-royalty-harmonisation-and.html