ART MARKET BIDS BRITAIN FAREWELL, PUSHED OUT BY FRANCE AND EU

I have a strong sense of déjà vue about the travails of the art market in the wake of the introduction of droit de suite. I first wrote about it about ten years ago, when the legislation was being discussed and the British Government swore blind that it would protect the flourishing British art market. So much for promises.

The droit de suite is a sliding-scale levy paid by the vendor of a work of art to a living artist or to an artist's family for 70 years after death. About 80 percent is likely to go to descendants of artists like Picasso, Matisse or Soutine - none of whom are exactly on the breadline - and every bit will help drive the business to the US and Switzerland.

Since the measure was being introduced under the all-embracing aura of the Single Market it was voted through on QMV and the British Government was left with little on its hands. (Such power and influence our partnership with the EU has purchased.)

Now the droit de suite is here with us or. At least, partly so, the second tranche being due in 2012. (If we are really unlucky we shall lose vast amounts of money as well as thousands of visitors because of the wretched Olympic Games just about the time we shall be losing vast amounts of money and thousands of well-heeled and free-spending visitors because the modern art market will have finally disappeared from these shores. Good planning.)

It is not just Britain that will suffer. The European Fine Art Foundation, which runs the world's most important art fair, coincidentally, in Maastricht has commissioned and independent team of researchers and their report is gloomy reading.

Will Bennett, the Art Sales Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph gives us the report's good news: The modern and contemporary art market has been performing exceptionally well in Britain in the last four years. The report's bad news is that this state of affairs is unlikely to survive droit de suite. It offers the following, "The more valuable a painting becomes, the more likely it is that the owner will sell in a marketplace that does not charge droit de suite."

Evidence is already in good supply. France has introduced the droit de suite; and that is thought to be the reason for the New York-based auction of Belgian businessman René Gaffé's collection in 2001 - an auction which was once thought to have been secured by French auctioneers. Too bad for them. It went for £50 million.

The droit de suite will first be levied on work of living artists. The second tranche in 2012 will extend to work of artists who have died within the last 70 years. This category will include a very large amount of high priced art.

The British Art Market Foundation has accepted that the first tranche of this harmful legislation is going through (there is not much else they can do, I suppose) but intend to fight against the second one.

How do they expect to do that, one wonders. Once EU legislation has been agreed on, a member state is legally bound to implement it. Will these people never learn?

One aspect of this sorry tale is rarely mentioned. Sotheby's and Christie's will simply transfer their operations to New York and have, no doubt, been planning to do so for a while. But what will happen to the presently..............Full Article www.FreeMarketNews.com

This is the first that I've heard about "droit de suite." On it's face I think it sounds like a reasonable protection for the artist. It appears that the middle men are the ones in opposition to this. I understand that this shifts power to places where the royalty is not enforced. The only thing that gives me pause is the idea of what the unintended consequences are. No one can really answer what those are.

Instinct tells me this is a good idea, considering that the value of artist's work increases exponentially after they are deceased.

The idea that somebody retains "moral rights" in a piece of property after they've sold it to someone else is abhorrent to our idea of private property. So an artist sells a painting for peanuts, and 50 years after he's died he becomes famous and the painting becomes priceless. BFD. The idea that his descendants are somehow morally entitled to part of the price every time the painting changes hands is ridiculous.

"The idea that somebody retains "moral rights" in a piece of property after they've sold it to someone else is abhorrent to our idea of private property."

Abhorrent to middle men perhaps. Writers have copyright protection long after their deaths, this simply extends the principle to artworks.

Not quite: a book is REPRODUCED. And an Artist gets a payoff every time their work is reproduced.

These aren't reproductions: they're originals, and they were sold AS IS. This is equivalent to paying the writer when you buy a book from a USED bookstore. . .

The is basically an ex post facto law of the worst kind, changing the laws arbitrarily after the fact.

If they want to introduce some sort of copyright equivalent to the visual arts, by all means let them try. But this should be done with future purchases and contracts.

It is immoral and, by ordinary standards, illegal to change the laws ex post facto. The British common law and American constitutional law both recognize that, except where activist judges stretch laws to the breaking point.

It would be perfectly reasonable to sell a painting but retain the rights of reproduction. Or to sell the painting but retain a percentage on all subsequent sales. But that should be written into the contract.

The price would be adjusted accordingly. No one would pay the same price for limited ownership that they would pay for outright ownership. And the passage of ex post facto laws is therefore an infringement on the property rights of all those who bought paintings before the law came into effect.

Typical French, with their laws based on the Napoleonic code, a backward set of laws if there ever was one. No wonder this "droit de suite" has a French name.

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