WIPO conference on resale right sees overwhelming support for international action

The case for a formal inter-governmental process to promote international adoption of the resale right for visual artists has taken an important step forward following the first ever full conference at the headquarters of WIPO in Geneva dedicated to the issue.

The conference, organised by WIPO before its Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), had been scheduled by the UN agency in 2016. It aimed to provide information and improve knowledge about the right among Member States, study its economic impact and understand its importance for creators. The event saw overwhelming support for further action by WIPO to encourage global adoption of the right.
– Key highlights of the conference, attended by more than 200 delegates including artists, policy makers, society members and academics, included:

– Vocal support for the resale right from well-known artists from countries throughout the globe including France, Mexico, UK, Canada, Japan, Algeria and Benin;

– Confirmation that a new study on the economic impact of the resale right, commissioned by WIPO and due for publication in September, found no negative impact on the price or sales volume of artworks as a result of the resale righ;

– Growing support from Member State delegates for the proposal from Senegal and Congo for further action within WIPO to promote global adoption of the resale right.

The resale right grants artists a percentage of the sale price when their works are sold in auction houses or galleries. It exists in more than 80 countries, but many artists are losing out in countries where the right is not implemented into national law, such as the United States, China, Switzerland and Japan.

One of the key highlights of the conference came with an early insight into the findings of a new economic study on the resale right, which had been commissioned by WIPO to set the background for international discussions. Study co-author Katheryn Graddy of Brandeis International Business School in the United States noted that there had been concerns from auction houses that the resale right might lower prices and therefore hurt young artists. However, the findings of two economic studies firmly contradicted this suggestion. Graddy was commissioned by WIPO, along with a French academic Joelle Farchy, to look at the economic impact of implementation of the resale right.

Graddy outlined an initial study that compared the price and volume trends of more than 570,000 artworks in order to understand the impact of the resale right over the period from 1996 to 2007. It found that, in the UK, the prices of art works subject to resale right grew on average by 7.7% per year. This compared to annual growth rate for works not subject to the right of 5.5% per year.

She also said that a follow-up study commissioned by WIPO “came to exactly the same conclusions”, covering the years 2002 to 2014. She said that the new report will be submitted to WIPO “at the end of the summer”.

Concluding on the findings of her research, Graddy told the conference “There is little evidence that prices have dropped because of the implementation of the resale right. Artists are overwhelmingly in favour and it clearly encourages and motivates artists which is the purpose of intellectual property in the first place”.

The conference heard further evidence of the benefits brought to visual artists by the resale right. In the UK, the visual artist society Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) says that it has distributed more than £50 million to over 4,000 artists and estates since the right took effect in 2006. In Australia, resale right collections started in 2010. By October 2016, it had already generated more than 4.5 million Australian dollars for more than 1,275 artists.

CISAC data demonstrates the value of the resale right to artists at a global level. In the countries where the right exists, it helps generate total royalty collections of some US$50 million (€44.9 million), amounting to 25% of total global visual arts collections, according to CISAC’s 2016 Global Collections Report.

CISAC.ORG

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