CAA News Today
Art Authentication Protection Bill
posted by Linda Downs — March 27, 2014
An important and potentially precedent-setting Bill (S13.04) has been introduced into the New York State Assembly: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=S06794&term=2013&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Text=Y. This legislation has been introduced to offer protections to art historians, art curators, independent art scholars, conservators, and other qualified experts who submit good faith opinions on the authenticity, attribution, or authorship of works of art from unsubstantiated law suits. This Bill has the support of the New York City Bar Association Art Law Committee and the Center for Art Law in New York.
Your Assemblyman/woman in the New York State Assembly needs to hear directly from you. Please send a letter, email or phone message supporting passage of this Bill by the New York State Assembly: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/.
Sincerely,
Anne Collins Goodyear, President
Linda Downs, Executive Director and CEO
CAA Participates in Roundtables on “Orphan Works and Mass Digitization”
posted by Linda Downs — March 26, 2014
On March 10–11, 2014, the United States Copyright Office (USCO) held a series of public roundtables in Washington, DC, exploring the question of “Orphan Works and Mass Digitization.”[1] Collectively, these discussion panels constituted a follow up to a Notice of Inquiry circulated by USCO in the fall of 2012, in response to which CAA filed reply comments in March 2013.[2] Given CAA’s long advocacy of legislation to offer protection to those individuals and institutions using orphan works, and after consulting with CAA members familiar with concerns related to orphan works,[3] I represented the organization in two sessions, one addressing the “Types of Works Subject to Orphan Works Legislation, Including Issues Related Specifically to Photographs” (Session 4) and the other “Types of Users and Uses Subject to Orphan Works Legislation” (Session 5).[4]
“Orphan works” constitute a class of materials for which no copyright owner can be located.[5] They have long posed a thorny challenge for scholars or artists who might seek to reproduce them, but who cannot locate the creator or a source from which to license them for purposes not considered “fair use.” As a publisher of leading journals—Art Bulletin and Art Journal, and caa.reviews—and an advocate for its members who might similarly seek to use orphan works, CAA has consistently argued in favor of orphan works legislation that 1) would significantly limit the liability of a user of an orphan work who had executed a diligent search for the work’s copyright owner, and 2) provide a safe harbor for not-for-profit cultural institutions, engaged in non-commercial activities, that had exercised similar care and that took steps to cease the infringement. At the same time, CAA has spoken to the importance of the attribution of the work and has argued that if a copyright holder comes forward that rights holder be entitled to a reasonable licensing fee if, indeed, the use is not considered “fair” as allowed under the law.
Consistent with positions taken by CAA previously, the organization argued that all copyrighted works, including photographs, should be protected by orphan works legislation. Photographs, which can be notoriously difficult to associate with their makers, have proven particularly tricky as a group of objects, actually being excepted from a directive, intended to facilitate the non-commercial public interest use of orphan works, passed by the European Union.[6] However, not to consider photographs as part of the larger category of orphan works would be extremely limiting from the perspective of CAA given the strong interest of its members in sources of visual information. Categorically excluding photographic and other works of visual art from orphan works eligibility would disadvantage users of images, including artists, scholars, and publishers, who would face continued risks of being sued for copyright infringement despite being unable to determine the identity of the copyright owner at the time of their use. The purpose of orphan works legislation is to mitigate the legal risk of using works that are part of our shared culture. It is because those risks can have chilling implications, adversely affecting creative work by artists and scholars, that CAA has been committed to support orphan works legislation.
Given the diverse range of purposes to which copies of orphan works might be put by its members, CAA has argued that both commercial and non-commercial uses of such material should be protected, given the extraordinary difficulty of teasing apart such interests. Because artists (like scholars) can be both creators and users of copyrighted items, they may seek to make and market work incorporating reproductions of orphan works. In similar fashion, academic or independent scholars or museum professionals make seek to illustrate orphan works in publications made available for sale. While recognizing that a voluntary registry (or registries) of copyrighted works, such as photographs might be useful, CAA does not endorse requiring such registration, nor does it feel that the terms of a “diligent search” for the holders of copyright of orphaned works should be prescribed, arguing instead that the best approach to such research would be better determined on a case-by-case basis.
Although previous legislation, S. 2913 (the Shawn Bentley Act) faltered in the House of Representatives in 2008, and was thus not enacted into law, USCO is now reexamining the potential value of pursuing orphan works legislation anew—both with regard to the occasional or isolated use of orphan works as well as mass digitization. These efforts reflect the influence of new technology and ongoing litigation, such as cases concerning Google Books and the HathiTrust, where mass digitization was found by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to constitute “fair use.”[7]
The growing reliance of many libraries and archives upon the principle of “fair use” as a justification for digitization has led USCO to consider whether this defense obviates the need for orphan works legislation. CAA has argued that this is not the case, recognizing that some uses of copyrighted material may not constitute “fair use.” Thus CAA continues to appreciate the value of such legislation to clarify the class known as “orphan works” to protect the needs of its membership, even as it advocates for the development of best practices guidelines for the fair use of copyrighted material.
CAA intends to submit comments related to the roundtable by USCO’s filing deadline of April 14th. Should any CAA members wish to offer thoughts related to this topic to be considered in relation to such a filing by CAA, please contact Executive Director Linda Downs (ldowns@collegeart.org) or President Anne Collins Goodyear (AGoodyear@bowdoin.edu) by April 7th.
Endnotes
[1] For more information on this event and other Notices of Inquiry by the US Copyright Office (USCO) on this topic, please see: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/. Transcripts and video of the roundtables will be posted when they become available on the website of the USCO.
[2] CAA’s submission of these comments is described in CAA’s resources on “Intellectual Property and the Arts” which provides a link to these comments: http://www.collegeart.org/ip/orphanworks.
[3] For their generosity with their time and expertise, I thank Jeffrey P. Cunard, Christine L. Sundt, Judy Metro, Doralynn Pines, Eve Sinaiko, Linda Downs, and Betty Leigh Hutcheson. Chris Sundt and Jeff Cunard generously provided comments on earlier drafts of this posting, for which I am grateful. CAA’s long history of involvement with orphan works is detailed in CAA’s recent submission of comments, prepared by CAA counsel Jeffrey P. Cunard, on Orphan Works and Mass Digitization to USCO, in March 2013; please see: http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/noi_11302012/College-Art-Association.pdf. http://www.collegeart.org/ip/orphanworks.
[4] Due to the strong outpouring of interest in the topic, participation by each organization had to be limited, and CAA prioritized these sessions.
[5] Further discussion of orphan works can be found on CAA’s website under “Intellectual Property and the Arts,” at http://www.collegeart.org/publications/ow.
[6] These challenges and the directive passed by the European Union are discussed in the February 10, 2014 USCO Notice of Inquiry for Orphan Works and Mass Digitization, available at http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/. See specifically the discussion of the topics raised by Session 4: “Types of Works Subject to Orphan Works Legislation, Including Issues Related Specifically to Photographs.”
[7] For more information on these decisions, including links to them, please see: See http://www.publicknowledge.org/files/google%20summary%20judgment%20final.pdf and Andrew Albanese, “Google Scanning is Fair Use Says Judge,” Publishers Weekly, October 11, 2012. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/54321-in-hathitrust-ruling-judge-says-google-scanning-is-fair-use.html. I thank Chris Sundt for recommending these resources.
Office of Museum Services Funding Letters–Deadlines Extended to Friday, March 28
posted by CAA — March 26, 2014
The American Alliance of Museums sent the following email on March 25, 2014.
Office of Museum Services Funding Letters–Deadlines Extended to Friday, March 28
Important Update: The deadlines for legislators to sign the Tonko/Lance/Slaughter/Grimm and Gillibrand/Blunt Office of Museum Services appropriations letters have been extended until THIS FRIDAY, MARCH 28. We need to redouble our efforts in the next few days to make sure every Representative and Senator hears from the museums they represent, asking them to sign on to these important funding letters.
As we have shared in recent Alliance Advocacy Alerts, these six champions are circulating letters among their colleagues in the House and Senate in support of funding for museums nationwide through the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Current HOUSE Letter Signers: Tonko (NY), Lance (NJ), Slaughter (NY), Grimm (NY), Titus (NV), Yarmuth (KY), Pocan (WI), Sablan (MP), McGovern (MA), Ruppersberger (MD), Levin (MI), Tsongas (MA), Clarke (NY), Danny Davis (IL), Hastings (FL), Schneider (IL), Neal (MA), Lofgren (CA), Blumenauer (OR), Pingree (ME), Michaud (ME), Tierney (MA), Braley (IA), McNerney (CA), Norton (DC), Rangel (NY), Cicilline (RI), Christensen (VI), Langevin (RI), Swalwell (CA), Shea-Porter (NH), McCollum (MN), Holt (NJ), Deutch (FL), Moran (VA), Grijalva (AZ), Wilson (FL), Luján (NM), Bonamici (OR), Gutierrez (IL), Higgins (NY), Lipinski (IL), Matsui (CA), Loretta Sanchez (CA), McKinley (WV), Courtney (CT), Cummings (MD), Carson (IN), McDermott (WA), Beatty (OH), Schakowsky (IL), Doggett (TX), Hinojosa (AZ), Gabbard (HI), Clay (MO), Bishop (NY), Connolly (VA), Nadler (NY), Castor (FL), Ellison (MN), Pascrell (NJ), Johnson (GA), Kuster (NH), Capps (CA), Dingell (MI), Linda Sanchez (CA) and Payne (NJ)
Current SENATE Letter Signers: Gillibrand (NY), Blunt (MO), Hirono (HI), Coons (DE), Leahy (VT), Blumenthal (CT), Stabenow (MI), Schumer (NY), Johnson (SD), King (ME), Cardin (MD), Sanders (VT) and Heinrich (NM)
If any of your legislators are NOT yet on these lists, please contact your Representative and Senators TODAY and ask them to please sign the letter supporting museum funding through the Office of Museum Services. You can use our Legislator Look-Up to identify your Representative and Senators.
If they have already signed on, please say THANK YOU.
You can call the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected to your legislators’ offices.
You can also thank them on Facebook and Twitter, and find your legislators’ Facebook pages and Twitter handles in their profiles in our online Directory.
Thank you for taking action on this important, and time-sensitive, issue!
Act Now to Support Humanities Funding
posted by CAA — March 25, 2014
The National Humanities Alliance sent the following email on March 25, 2014.
Act Now to Support Humanities Funding
Dear Humanities Advocate,
Last year, the House Budget Committee called for the complete elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities in its budget resolution. By sending messages to elected officials, advocates like you helped to defeat the proposal and preserve critical funding for the humanities.
Now, you can help ensure a brighter future for federal humanities funding by urging your elected officials to join a bipartisan effort to support NEH. By signing on to House and Senate Dear Colleague letters, your Members of Congress can demonstrate support for NEH funding to the appropriations committee members that hold the agency’s future in their hands.
Click here to send our message to your elected officials today. They are waiting to hear from you.
It is critical that you act now. The deadline for Representatives to sign on to the House letter is Monday, March 31, and the deadline for Senators to sign on to the Senate letter is Friday, April 4.
Best regards,
Stephen Kidd, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National Humanities Alliance
(202) 296-4994 x149
CAA Participates in Humanities Advocacy Day 2014
posted by Michael Fahlund — March 21, 2014
Humanities Advocacy Day 2014, sponsored by the National Humanities Alliance (NHA), took place in Washington, DC, on Monday and Tuesday, March 10 and 11, 2014. As a member of NHA, CAA supports that organization’s advocacy efforts and sends representatives to its annual meeting each year. CAA’s participation in these activities allows the association to promote the visual arts and to persuade others—in this case the members of both houses of Congress—to embrace the value of the humanities in education and in daily life.
The annual meeting on Monday included an opening welcome by George Washington University’s president, Steven Knapp, followed by a presentation by Stephen Kidd, NHA executive director, outlining the alliance’s advocacy agenda for the year. Knapp introduced additional speakers whose interests and projects intersect with the NHA’s four-pronged argument for stressing the value of the humanities: promoting opportunity for all Americans, fostering innovation and economic competitiveness, ensuring productive global engagement, and strengthening civic knowledge and practice. Knapp also identified two initiatives outside Congress to promote the humanities in the public sphere: Humanities Working Groups for Community Impact (see item 5) and Call for Videos. Aimed directly at the public rather than elected officials, these initiatives will help to establish to those outside the academy that the humanities are an area worth funding.
David Scobey, executive dean of the New School for Public Engagement, presented a talk called “E Pluribus Anthology: Why American Communities Need the Humanities,” which advocated a return to civic engagement as a way of reigniting the humanities. Carol Muller, professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed a community project that she directs, West Philadelphia Music, which amplified Scobey’s argument. Other speakers during the day included Elva LeBlanc, president of the Northwest Campus of Tarrant County College, who spoke on the relevancy of higher education and the importance of preparing students for change and complexity; and Francisco G. Cigarroa, chancellor of the University of Texas System. In the afternoon, Humanities Advocacy Day participants received issue briefs and background material concerning proposed funding levels for federal humanities programs and position papers that were helpful in preparing for congressional visits.
On Tuesday, six NHA delegates from the state of New York (listed in the next paragraph) visited the offices of Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer and Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Eliot Engel, Carolyn Maloney, Tom Reed, and José E. Serrano. In each instance, the group urged senators and representatives to support specific fiscal-year budgets for the National Endowment for the Humanities ($154.4 million), the Institute for Museum and Library Services ($226.5 million), and the Library of Congress ($593 million), and to properly fund the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and Title VI/Fulbright-Hays international programs. NHA delegates also asked their legislators to sign “Dear Colleague” letters in support of these budgets based on the alliance’s funding recommendations, which are higher than those proposed by the Obama administration.
The New York delegates from NHA were: Kathleen Fitzpatrick, director of scholarly communication for the Modern Language Association; Peter Berkery Jr., executive director of the Association of American University Presses; Jennifer Steenshorne, junior associate editor for Columbia University Libraries; Jonathan Gilad, program assistant at the American Political Science Association; Michael Fahlund, CAA deputy director; and Betty Leigh Hutcheson, CAA director of publications.
Senate Museum Funding Push Is Now Bipartisan; Tell Your Senators to Join the Effort
posted by CAA — March 20, 2014
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) sent the following email on March 19, 2014
Senate Museum Funding Push is Now Bipartisan; Tell Your Senators to Join the Effort
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) are now circulating a bipartisan letter urging the Senate Appropriations Committee to provide robust funding in FY 2015 for the Office of Museum Services (OMS) at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). This is the fifth year that Senator Gillibrand has led this effort, but the first time Senator Blunt will co-lead the letter.
The deadline for Senators to sign on to this letter is March 25, 2014.
The Office of Museum Services is receiving $30.1 million this year, well below its authorized level of $38.6 million. The Gillibrand/Blunt letter is your Senators’ chance to go on record in support of museum funding, so ask them to sign on today!
“Following visits from his constituents during Museums Advocacy Day, Senator Blunt decided to co-lead this letter with Senator Gillibrand, making it a bipartisan effort and demonstrating the value of our field-wide efforts in Washington, D.C.,” said Alliance President Ford W. Bell. “I applaud Senators Gillibrand and Blunt for their leadership in supporting museums nationwide. We are especially thrilled that Senator Blunt has joined the cause this year; museums in Missouri should be proud to have such a responsive museum champion in Congress.”
Last year, you contacted legislators in record numbers and you made a real difference: a record-breaking number of Senators signed the letter supporting funding for the IMLS Office of Museum Services. Keep that momentum going by contacting your Senators now.
Thank you for acting on this important issue!
President Reduces Support for NEA in 2015 Budget
posted by CAA — March 05, 2014
Americans for the Arts sent the following email on March 4, 2014.
President Reduces Support for NEA in 2015 Budget
Today, the Obama Administration released its FY 2015 budget request to Congress, which includes funding for the nation’s cultural agencies and programs, such as the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Office of Museum Services, and the Department of Education’s Arts In Education program.
As Americans for the Arts President & CEO Robert Lynch noted in a statement:
The Administration’s FY 2015 request of level funding at $146 million for the National Endowment for the Arts is unfortunately insufficient, considering $154 million has been proposed by the Administration each of the two previous years. Senate appropriators were ready to match this funding each of these years. Investment in the arts is an investment in our nation’s culture, education, and economy. Although it is very welcoming to see the Administration continue support for Our Town and the NEA/Walter Reed Healing Arts Partnership programs, now is the time to boost investment, not reduce it. To reduce support provides both an inconsistent and confusing message for the creative economy in America. This is even more important as the President has recently nominated a new chair to lead the NEA. Arts advocates from across the country will join together on Capitol Hill for Arts Advocacy Day on March 25th to lobby Congress to increase NEA funding to $155 million.
This chart illustrates the inconsistent nature of the Obama Administration’s funding requests for the NEA:
The following is a comparison of the Administration’s FY 2015 budget request and FY 2014 enacted levels:
| Key Federally Funded Arts Program |
FY 2014 Enacted Appropriations (in millions) |
FY 2015 President’s Budget Request (in millions) |
| National Endowment for the Arts |
$146 |
$146 |
| National Endowment for the Humanities |
$146 |
$146 |
| U.S. Dept. of Education’s Arts In Education Program |
$25 |
$0* |
| Office of Museum Services |
$30 |
$31 |
| Corporation for Public Broadcasting (advanced) |
$445 |
$445 |
| U.S. Dept. of State’s Educational & Cultural Exchange |
$560 |
$578 |
*Similar to previous years, the Administration proposes to consolidate the Department of Education’s Arts In Education program.
WHAT COMES NEXT
The President’s request is traditionally just the first step in the legislative budgeting process. Next, the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate offer their proposals that will reflect their own particular priorities. Appropriations subcommittee work is already underway with several upcoming hearings scheduled.
We ask that advocates remain vigilant in the months ahead as Congress works to pass spending bills. Last year, the House Appropriations Interior subcommittee proposed cutting NEA funding nearly in half! Thanks to your messages to Congress, the nation’s signature cultural agency was spared such drastic cuts after an outpouring of support that helped enable Senate appropriators to drive the final result. We hope to count on your advocacy again this year.
Our kickoff advocacy effort will launch at our National Arts Advocacy Day conference on March 24–25. Join us in Washington, DC for the only national event that brings together a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic organizations, along with hundreds of grassroots advocates from across the country. We encourage you to register for this national arts action summit and join us on Capitol Hill as the arts community brings a united message to Congress to increase funding for the NEA to $155 million! The deadline for advance registration is approaching quickly on Monday, March 10, 2014.
Help us continue this important work by also becoming an official member of the Arts Action Fund. If you are not already a member, play your part by joining the Arts Action Fund today—it’s free and easy to join.
Last chance to register for NHA Annual Meeting and Humanities Advocacy Day
posted by CAA — February 27, 2014
The National Humanities Alliance (NHA) sent the following email on February 27, 2014.
Last chance to register for NHA Annual Meeting and Humanities Advocacy Day
Registration deadline: Saturday, March 1, 2014
March 10–11, 2014
George Washington University’s Marvin Center and Capitol Hill
Washington, DC
Advocating Locally for National Impact
The 2014 NHA annual meeting will look beyond broad arguments for the value of the humanities to make the case that fostering and demonstrating impact in local communities is critical to increasing support for the humanities among elected officials and the general public. The meeting will feature a series of speakers who will explore: ways to engage local communities in humanities research, teaching, preservation, and programming; the benefits of publicly engaged work to institutions, students, and communities; the role that the humanities can play in the lives of students as they pursue a variety of career paths and goals; and ways to involve elected officials in this work.
Over the last five years, the humanities have faced particular challenges on the state level, as governors and state legislatures have sought to direct funding and students to other courses of study. This year’s annual meeting will feature two speakers from Texas who can speak to the importance of expanding the role of the humanities in their communities amid the challenging state context.
Participants will also learn about efforts to foster increased collaboration between academic institutions and public humanities organizations with the goal of increasing connections with the broader public.
Click here for a preliminary program.
Registration
Click here to register today.
Registration: $100
Deadline: March 1, 2014
Featured Speakers
Francisco Cigarroa, Chancellor, University of Texas System, and a Member of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences
One of ten children, Francisco Cigarroa is a third generation physician. He graduated from Yale University in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in biology and earned his medical degree in 1983 from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Cigarroa joined the faculty of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1995, where he served as director of pediatric surgery before serving as president of the institution from 2000 to 2009. In 2003, President George W. Bush appointed him to serve on the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science. In 2009, Cigarroa became the first Hispanic to be named chancellor of the University of Texas System. As chancellor, he oversees one of the largest public systems of higher education in the nation, which consists of nine universities and six health institutions. President Barack Obama has appointed Cigarroa to serve as a commissioner on the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he also serves on the academy’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences. Cigarroa is a nationally renowned transplant surgeon and continues to perform liver and kidney transplant surgeries.
Elva Concha LeBlanc, President, Northwest Campus, Tarrant County College District
Elva Concha LeBlanc is president of the Northwest Campus of Tarrant County College District (TCCD). Northwest Campus is one of five campuses of TCCD, a multicampus, single college district of over 50,000 enrollments. Previously, as president of Galveston College, she led the transformation of that institute into a “learning college” with a focus on student learning, assessment, and outcomes. Prior to serving Galveston, LeBlanc was executive vice president for instructional affairs at Austin Community College. A former Tarrant County College student and alumna of the University of North Texas, LeBlanc served TCCD as professor, faculty chair, director of institutional effectiveness, and dean of instruction.
Carol Muller, Professor of Music, University of Pennsylvania
The South African–born Carol Muller is professor of music and current director of the Africa Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She has published widely on South African music, at home and in exile. Her intellectual interests are in issues of gender, religion, music, diaspora, and postcolonial studies, and her most recent is a book coauthored with South African jazz singer, Sathima Bea Benjamin, called Musical Echoes: South African Women Thinking in Jazz (Duke University Press, 2011); another book, Shembe Hymns (University of KwaZulu Natal Press, 2011), was edited by Muller and translated by Bongani Mthethwa. Muller was topic director for the Penn Humanities Forum (2003–4) on subject of Belief. She has done pioneering work in ethnomusicology on issues of civic engagement, community partner and student research in West Philadelphia, and has experimented with online learning over the last decade—her Coursera–Penn course Listening to World Music attracted 37,000 students in its first iteration—it was one of the first humanities courses offered as a MOOC. Muller is also a gumboot dancer.
David Scobey, Executive Dean, New School for Public Engagement
David Scobey is a national leader in developing innovative methods to engage institutions of higher education with communities outside the academy. He was previously director of the Harvard Center at Bates College in Maine, established to bring together community-based learning and research, cocurricular work, and environmental stewardship. He is the founder and former director of the University of Michigan’s Arts of Citizenship program, an initiative to integrate civic engagement and the liberal arts. He serves on the boards of Project Pericles, an organization that encourages universities to include civic engagement as an element of undergraduate education, and Bringing Theory to Practice, a project that links education as a public good with civic engagement and concern for the well-being of individual students.
Baldwin, Markey, and Nadler Introduce Legislation to Level the Playing Field for American Visual Artists
posted by Christopher Howard — February 27, 2014
US Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ed Markey (D-MA) and Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) have introduced legislation to level the playing field for visual artists in the United States by establishing copyright protections for their intellectual property.
“Artists and arts organizations make valuable contributions to our communities and strengthen our quality of life. Just as our copyright laws extend to musicians and authors to encourage their artistic creativity, they should also apply to our visual artists,” said Senator Baldwin, who serves on the National Council on the Arts. “The ART Act is a commonsense measure that helps protect the intellectual property of our artists.”
“Our visual artists are critical cultural contributors, and the ART Act ensures they are fairly compensated for their work,” said Senator Markey. “Their creativity is a currency that should be properly valued. The ART Act also brings the United States in line with over seventy other countries, so that American artists can receive royalties when their works are sold overseas.”
“American artists are being treated unfairly,” said Congressman Nadler, who first introduced a version of the ART Act in 2011 and serves as the Ranking Democrat on the Courts, Intellectual Property, and Internet Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. “At a time when more than seventy other countries properly compensate visual artists for their work, it is time for the United States to do the same. The ART Act will ensure that visual artists get the compensation they deserve and will no longer be at a disadvantage on the international art market. It is the only fair thing to do.”
“Visual artists are the only members of the creative community in the United States who do not receive residual payments for their works. Composers, lyricists, actors, playwrights, screenwriters all deservedly receive royalties for the later productions, performances, or sales of their works,” said Frank Stella, one of the most renowned artists in the world and recipient of the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2009. “Unfortunately, visual artists in the US do not earn a penny in residual or resale payments. The benefits derived from the appreciation in the later sale of their works accrue entirely to the collectors, auction houses, and galleries. The adoption of the droit de suite in my country is therefore long overdue.”
Under current copyright law, visual artists—painters, sculptors, and photographers—are denied the ability to fully benefit from the success of their work over time. Unlike recording artists or publishers who, if successful, sell thousands of copies of their work and recoup a royalty from each purchase, artists sell their work only once. If they are successful, the price of their work increases but they recoup nothing if their original work is resold at a much higher price. The benefits derived from the appreciation in the price of a visual artists’ work typically accrues to collectors, auction houses, and galleries, not to the artist. In addition, United States artists are at a disadvantage in the global art market where more than seventy other countries have provided resale royalty rights for visual artists. The American Royalties, Too (ART) Act of 2014 remedies this inequity by providing a modest resale royalty right for visual artists.
The ART Act would:
- Provide a competitive resale royalty of five percent of the sales price (up to $35,000) for any work of visual art sold at auction for $5,000 or more
- The resale royalty applies to any auction where the entity conducting the auction has sold at least $1 million of visual art during the previous year
- Royalties are collected by visual artists’ copyright collecting societies who must distribute the royalties to the artists or their heirs at least four times per year
- Allows US artists to collect resale royalties when their works are sold at auction in the European Union and more than seventy other countries
- The ART Act requires further study by the Copyright Office after five years to determine the effects of the resale royalty on the art market and whether it should be expanded to cover works sold by dealers and other art market professionals
The ART Act includes many recommendations from the US Copyright Office’s December 2013 report, entitled Resale Royalties: An Updated Analysis.
Appeal for Oral Readers to Make Podcasts of Chapters of Reclaiming the Ivory Tower
posted by Linda Downs — February 25, 2014
Calling all Adjunct Voices!
Help us collectively record an audiobook of Joe Berry’s Reclaiming the Ivory Tower!!
Call for Introduction, Chapter 1, & Chapter 2!
Adjunct Underground, a radio program dedicated to the issues confronting today’s contingent educational workforce, is looking for any current or former adjunct/contingent/part-time faculty who would be willing to read and record short sections of Joe Berry’s book, Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Our goal is to create a complete audio book of Berry’s book, read entirely by a plethora of adjunct voices.
Are you an adjunct or contingent teacher, and would you be willing to read aloud and record a few pages for us?
The resulting audiobook will be broadcast one chapter at a time, and made available as a free, downloadable podcast, on the program, Adjunct Underground, on KCHUNG Radio.
All contributors can remain anonymous if they so choose, though no voices will be altered in the recordings.
If interested, please look at the spreadsheet at the following link, and select and mark an available section that you would like to read: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnRu6M-k0cvidEVNUktzUGtBUUlDRFJQNHZKYzEtYkE#gid=0. We would like to get as many voices as possible to read this text, so for now we are accepting only ONE section per person.
Send your section request to adjunctunderground@gmail.com, and we’ll send you a pdf of the text, along with a few further instructions. (You’ll then need to record yourself reading the text in a quiet place, using a free program like Audacity, or even your cell phone.)
Finally, please help spread the word by recruiting at least one colleague of yours to participate as well!
Thank you so much for your help!
. . .
From the back of the book:
Reclaiming the Ivory Tower is the first organizing handbook for contingent faculty—the thousands of non-tenure track college teachers who love their work but hate their jobs. It examines the situation of adjunct professors in U.S. higher education today and puts forward an agenda around which they can mobilize to transform their jobs and their institutions.
Full of concrete suggestions for action and based on extensive interviews with organizers Reclaiming the Ivory Tower is the most comprehensive and engaged account to date of the possibilities for a movement that has important lessons for labor organizing in general, as well as for the future of higher education.
Joe Berry teaches labor education and history at the University of Illinois and Roosevelt University in Chicago and chairs the Chicago Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor.
. . .
Adjunct Underground
Broadcasting sporadically on some Mondays at 1pm on KCHUNG Radio http://adjunctunderground.kchungradio.org
https://www.facebook.com/AdjunctUnderground
Adjunct Underground is a KCHUNG Radio broadcast and movement dedicated to the trials and tribulations of adjunct instructors in Los Angeles, and throughout the universe! Our sporadic underground broadcasts feature stories, conversations, interviews, rants, and more from our bunker-full of adjunct DJs and hosts, many of whom risk their livelihoods meeting with us to share their stories and insight on the precarity of today’s contingent education professionals! Adjuncts unite! Underground! on KCHUNG Radio!