Memorandum submitted by BECTU
BECTU is a trade union representing workers
in the culturual and media industries, specifically including
a number of visual artists.
Whilst our visual artist members work mainly
in cinema and television and other sectors of the creative and
media industries, many produce works of fine art alongside their
commercial work. We also have a number of members who are wholly
fine art practitioners.
BECTU welcomes the inquiry by the Culture Media
and Sport Committee into the sponsorship of the UK art market
and into ways of supporting and encouraging living artists and
the production of new work. It also welcomes the Committee's interest
in the artists' resale right.
We do not wish to comment on the sponsorship
or functioning of the UK art market as this falls outside BECTU's
remit. There are many ways of supporting and encouraging living
artists and the creation of new work but it should be recognised
that many artists normally earn their living from a range of sources
and not just from the sale of their artworks. Copyright provides
an increasingly important revenue source for them, a source from
which every artist can earn an income, if not a living, from their
work. The artists' resale right, as part of copyright, will contribute
to that once introduced in the UK.
We would also like to stress the importance
of ensuring that the education and training of artists includes
professional practice issues such as copyright and contract law,
financial management, health and safety as well as purely creative
subject. These are vital skills for every artist and underpin
their professional future.
As far as the Department for Culture Media &
Sport are concerned, we note its interest in mapping the Creative
and Cultural Industries to encourage proper statistical research
into and analysis of the sector and its increasingly important
contribution to the UK's creative, cultural and knowledge based
economies. We also welcome the DCMS and DTI cross-departmental
IP Forum and look forward to seeing more such initiatives. For
example, joint initiatives with DfES on the skills needs of artists
working in the art market and in other more commercial sectors.
Our main comments are on the Directive on the
Artists' Resale Right (2001/84/EC) and its implementation here
in the UK. BECTU strongly supports the introduction of the Artists'
Resale Right in the UK, its harmonisation across Europe and work
to ensure its future at International level.
As far as the UK is concerned, we believe that
the artists' resale right is a fundamental right of all artists.
It is an integral part of copyright to which artists are entitled.
If implementation is to provide the highest level of benefit for
artists then the UK should not seek to implement to the minimum
standard required by the Directive, but should legislate more
generously (also provided for by the Directive). In that way younger
and lesser known artists will obtain greater benefit from the
right.
With this in mind, the following are our views
on implementation in the UK of specific articles in the Directive:
1. ARTICLE 3—THRESHOLD
BECTU recommends that UK Government applies the
minimum threshold of
1,000 and not the maximum threshold of
3,000 for sales to which the resale right applies
This will provide maximum benefit to younger
and less well known artists.
We believe there is no substance to the argument
that the resale royalty paid on sales below
3,000 are too small to be administered economically.
In recent years BECTU members have benefited from the collection
and distribution of much smaller sums by DACS, for example, those
resulting from the licensing of photocopying. DACS is also responsible
for the licensing of individual reproductions of works by fine
artists, including low as well as high value transactions. Experience
of other collecting societies, such as the Authors' Licensing
and Collecting Society, demonstrates quite clearly that it is
possible to distribute small sums efficiently, transparently and
economically.
2. ARTICLE 4—ROYALTY
RATES
The UK should opt for a royalty rate of 5% on
the lowest resale price band
For the reasons outlined above, BECTU believes
that the UK Government should opt for a rate of 5% which will
be more generous to younger and less well known artists.
3. ARTICLE 6.2—COLLECTIVE
MANAGEMENT & ARTICLE
9—RIGHT TO
OBTAIN INFORMATION
DACS is the organisation to manage and administer
the resale right on behalf of all artists in the UK and compulsory
collective management is the preferred option
BECTU prefers compulsory collective management
of the right through DACS or, at the very least, the granting
of the right to information (Article 9 and Recital 30) to DACS
as the UK's only collecting society for visual artists.
First and foremost to develop a single source
to provide swift and speedy collation of data on resales and the
matching of this to data held on artists. In turn this will reduce
compliance difficulties for the art market by providing them with
a single body to which data on sales is submitted.
There is only collecting society for visual
artists in the UK and that is DACS. It is an organisation established
for and governed by artist members and operates on a not for profit
basis. It has a large number of reciprocal agreements with other
similar visual artists collecting societies elsewhere in Europe
(and internationally), which manage the resale right in their
countries and it can thus guarantee the reciprocation of resale
right revenue streams between the UK and other countries.
It has in recent years developed rights management
systems which not only handle primary licensing of works by its
fine art members but also handle revenues from a number of collective
licensing schemes. DACS has worked tirelessly to ensure that sums
received from the collective licensing schemes are available,
accounted for and distributed to any artist with a valid claim
and not just to its members (through its "Payback" programme).
BECTU, amongst others professional bodies was consulted by DACS
on the arrangements for these schemes, has participated in its
distribution work and has supported DACS throughout.
If DACS, as the collecting society for visual
artists, is acknowledged by UK Government as the collective management
body for the artists' resale right it can reduce the possibility
of individual artists being pressurised into non-exercise of their
right. In addition, DACS can help compensate for the current low
level of artist awareness of the right and its exercise by actively
seeking out artist claimants, even where those artists are not
direct members.
4. ARTICLE 8—EFFECT
OF IMPLEMENTATION
ON TERM
The term of protection of the resale right should
be the life of the artist plus a further 70 years and this should
be applied to all artists from the date of implementation
Anything else would be ungenerous to the heirs
and estates of deceased artists and further distorts differences
in implementation of the right between EU Member States and, in
the UK between the treatment of heirs and estates of those who
create literary, dramatic and musical works and those who create
artistic works.
| 
