Online-only art auctions: more bad news for artists?

In "Goodman and de Pury launch web-only auctions with promises to keep down fees", Roland Arkell, in the Antiques Trade Gazette, here, describes a new business model which has some repercussions for copyright too. The article explains that

"[t]wo senior members of the international auctioneering profession launch separate online-only ventures this week. Tim Goodman and Simon de Pury are embracing the digital revolution, looking to challenge a centuries-old business model with a footloose approach to selling art and antiques at auction. Goodman's Fine Art Bourse (FAB) hopes to gain traction in the market via an innovative pricing model. Meanwhile de Pury's eponymously titled firm is promising to reduce buyer's fees to 15%.

The headline statistic at FAB is that they will charge vendor's and buyer's fees of just 5% with a 72-hour packing and shipping service - so often a barrier to entry for bidding online - 'free' for both buyers and sellers. They add that transaction charges will be exempt of sales taxes or artist resale royalties, as sales are processed through headquarters in Hong Kong  ..."

It's not just the avoidance of artists' resale rights that will be of interest to copyright-sensitive readers. The production of glossy art auction catalogues provides an opportunity for the artist to charge for the reproduction of his or her work -- but if a web-only auction means web-only marketing, those deliciously desirable must-have catalogues, which have value as reference works in their own right and are held by art libraries for such purposes, may also be a thing of the past, replaced by a screenful of thumbnail images, perhaps.

Thanks go to John Walker for drawing my attention to this development.

Loser pays? This might be buyer or seller when it comes to artists' resale royalties says CJEU

Judgment was given today in Case C-41/14 Christie's France SNC v Syndicat national des antiquaires, a reference from the French Cour de Cassation for a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This was not one of the most taxing copyright-related cases to demand the court's attention and the CJEU was able to dispense with it, from start to finish, in just over 13 months -- an impressive performance if one recalls that, only a few years ago, judgments in intellectual property cases often took twice that length of time.  The case is summarised with exemplary clarity by the Curia press release, reproduced below for your convenience:

The cost of the royalty that has to be paid to the author on any resale of a work of art by an art market professional may be borne, definitively, by the seller or the buyer

Although under EU law the royalty is, in principle, to be paid by the seller, the Member States may specify another person from among the professional persons referred to in Directive 2001/84

The resale right is defined in an EU Directive [Directive 2001/84 on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art] as the right of the author of an original work of art to receive a royalty based on the sale price obtained for any resale of the work, subsequent to the first transfer of the work. That right applies to all acts of resale involving art market professionals (salesrooms, art galleries and, in general, dealers in works of art) as sellers, buyers or intermediaries.

Christie’s France, the French subsidiary of the multinational firm Christie’s, regularly organises auctions of works of art. A resale royalty is payable in respect of some of those sales. Christie’s France has provided in its general sales conditions that, for certain lots marked in its catalogue, it will collect from the buyer, for and on behalf of the seller, the amount representing the resale royalty.

The Syndicat National des Antiquaires (SNA) takes the view that, in placing the onus of the resale royalty on the buyer, Christie’s France’s general conditions amount to unfair competition. Christie’s France considers that the Directive states without further clarification or restriction that the royalty is payable by the seller and thus does not preclude a contractual arrangement regarding responsibility for the payment of the royalty. Hearing the case, the Cour de cassation (Court of Cassation), France, has asked the Court of Justice whether the seller is always definitively to bear the cost of the resale royalty or whether it is possible to depart from that rule by agreement

In today’s judgment the Court declares that the Member States alone may determine the person liable for the royalty. Although Directive 2001/84 provides that the person by whom the royalty is payable is, in principle, the seller, it none the less allows for a derogation from that rule and thus leaves the Member States at liberty to specify another person from among the professional persons referred to in the Directive who, alone or with the seller, will assume liability for the payment of the royalty. The person who has been designated in that way by national law as the person by whom the royalty is payable may agree with any other person, including the buyer, that that other person will definitively bear, in whole or in part, the cost of the royalty, provided that a contractual arrangement of that kind does not affect the obligations and liability which the person by whom the royalty is payable has towards the author. The Court points out that such a derogation is in keeping with the Directive’s objective of bringing to an end distortions of competition in the art market, since the harmonisation concerned is limited to those domestic provisions which have the most direct impact on the functioning of the internal market. For the purpose of achieving that objective, thus circumscribed, it is necessary to make provision as to the person liable for payment of the royalty and as to the rules for establishing the amount of the royalty. However, such provision is not necessary with regard to the question as to who, definitively, will bear the cost of the royalty.

The Court does not exclude the possibility that such a derogation may to some extent have a distorting effect on the functioning of the internal market. However, such an effect is only indirect since it arises as a result of contractual arrangements that are independent of the payment of the royalty to the author, for which the person by whom the royalty is payable remains liable.

Given that Article 1(4) of the Directive reads

"The royalty shall be payable by the seller. Member States may provide that one of the natural or legal persons ... other than the seller shall alone be liable or shall share liability with the seller for payment of the royalty",

it is difficult to see how even the CJEU was going to persuaded to give a different ruling,

There's also a Katpost from fellow blogger Eleonora here, which you are invited to read if you feel in need of further inspiration.

Resale royalties in Australia: here are some figures

It's not just data that can be concrete.  Here's
a piece of concrete artwork from Italy which,
embedded in the pavement, is unlikely ever
to be resold ...

From Anne Sanders comes news that, with regard to Australia, we now have some concrete data relating to that country's resale royalty scheme (thanks, Anne!).  This is really useful, since it provides a factual background for the debates that continue to take place as to (i) whether such a scheme should exist at all and, if so (ii) whether it should exist in its current form and whether its current benefits reach its intended beneficiaries.

The figures come from Senator Lundy, on behalf of the Minister for the Arts, in response to a set of questions from Senator Humphries  Readers will doubtless form their own opinions.

Minister representing the Minister for the Arts in the Senate 

SENATE QUESTION 

Resale Royalty Scheme 

Question No. 2677 

Senator Humphries asked the Minister representing the Minister for the Arts in the Senate on 24 January 2013: 

With reference to the artists resale royalty scheme and the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL): 

1. What is the total value of royalty collections to date, including figures for each quarter.

2. What percentage of the total value of royalties collected has gone to Indigenous artists, including figures for each quarter. 

3. What are the annual Art Centres figures for first sales of Indigenous art. 

4. What is the total value of the top 600 individual royalty payments to date. 

5. How many individual right-holders received the top 600 individual payments. 

6. How many of the top 600 individual royalty payments have gone to Indigenous right-holders, including figures for each quarter. 

7. To date, what is the total value of the lowest 2 000 individual royalty payments. 

8. If the scheme can deliver the smallest individual artist royalty payment at $50, with a 10 per cent administration fee of $5, why does the scheme charge an administration fee of $1 000 to deliver an individual royalty payment of $10 000. 

9. After deducting non-recurrent set-up costs, what is the average cost of the CALs individual royalty payments to date.

Senator Lundy – The Minister for the Arts has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question: 

1.The total value of royalty collections is $805,115.70. Data is collected on a six monthly basis. 

Period Royalty Collected/Value of Royalties2010 July – December: $26,191.80
2011 January – June: $128,323.80
2011 July – December: $204,811.20
2012 January – June: $153,670.50
2012 July – December: $292,118.40 

2. Since the commencement of the scheme, 59 per cent or $440,042 has been paid to Indigenous right-holders. Actual payment data is only available as a total. A disaggregation would require an unreasonable diversion of resources. 

3. The Department does not have the requested information. 

4. $296,772 

5. 150 

6. 301 payments for 91 right-holders. 

The data below shows the number of payments for each period according to when the eligible resale was reported. 

Period Resale Reported/Number of payments2010 July – December: 17
2011 January – June: 61
2011 July – December: 59
2012 January – June: 76
2012 July – December: 88
Total: 301 

7. $115,379 

8. The scheme allows the collecting society to charge a 10 per cent administration fee on each royalty paid to contribute to the scheme becoming self-sustaining over time. 

9.$30

US artists' resale rights: deadline extended

Earlier this morning the 1709 Blog posted this notice concerning the US Copyright Office's request for information about the operation of artist resale remuneration schemes in other countries.  The blog has now received the following welcome email from Jason M. Okai (Counsel for Policy and International Affairs United States Copyright Office):

"I read your posting this morning titled, "US seeks views on resale royalties: deadline looms." I am writing to let you know that the deadline is extended to December 5, 2012. A second Federal Register Notice was published on October 16, 2012 extending the deadline by thirty days.

You will find this notice at the following URL: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/10/16/2012-25370/extension-of-comment-period-resale-royalty-right".

Thanks, Jason, for letting us know.

US seeks views on resale royalties: deadline looms

The 1709 Blog thanks John R. Walker for drawing our attention to the following item from the United States.  According to the Federal Register:

The U.S. Copyright Office is undertaking an inquiry at the request of Congress to review how current copyright law affects and supports visual artists; and how a federal resale royalty right for visual artists would affect current and future practices of groups or individuals involved in the creation, licensing, sale, exhibition, dissemination, and preservation of works of visual art. The Office thus seeks comments from the public on the means by which visual artists exploit their works under existing law as well as the issues and obstacles that may be encountered when considering a federal resale royalty right in the United States.

Time is of the essence, since comments must be received by no later than 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on 5 November 2012.  Contact and submission details can all be found here. 

Resale right and race horses



Danedream winning the Arc (photo by Charles Roffey)

Although horse racing is not an Olympic discipline, I have just stumbled across this report about German/Irish race horse Danedream. As a filly, she was so mousy-looking and utterly unremarkable in training that in July 2010 her breeders sold her for the comparatively meagre sum of € 9,000. Two years on, she is "Galopper des Jahres" ("German Race Horse of the Year"), the first mare to win both the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and has won more than € 3.6 million for her new owners. Do the breeders get a piece of the pie? No. They cannot even breed new little Danedreams. As all her older brothers and sisters had been a bit of a disappointment, and she did not look promising either, the breeders sold her mother as well.


Horse sculpture by Curdin Guler (photo: Hans Loepfe)

I cannot help being struck by the parallels to fine art. Advocates of the artist's resale right (aka droit de suite) contend that an artist who sells her work should participate in any future commercial success through a share in the sales price. The same is not argued, as far as I am aware, for breeders of race horses. Yet it takes a lot of labour, skill, effort and expense to breed, raise and train a horse. And, similar to fine art, it is difficult to predict which ones will be successful in spite of appearances, like Danedream, and which ones look promising but fail in actual competitions.

So what do you think? Should there be a resale right to benefit breeders of race horses, are the two things completely different, or should there be neither an artist's resale right nor a resale right for breeders of race horses?

DACS campaigns against art trade campaign

From DACS -- the UK's Design and Artists Copyright Society -- comes a media release on a matter of obvious alarm to the Society's member.  It reads as follows:

"UK art trade campaign to stop royalties for artists

A campaign against the Artist’s Resale Right is threatening an important source of income for emerging artists.

The Artist’s Resale Right entitles UK artists and their families to royalties for artworks re-selling above €1,000. However, a campaign led by art dealers is calling for this threshold to be raised to €3,000.

The Government’s decision in 2005 to opt for a lower threshold of €1,000 meant that more emerging artists could enjoy resale royalties, as well as photographers and illustrators, whose works often sell at lower prices than fine art.

41% of artists who have received resale royalties since the Right came in in 2006 did so because of the lower threshold. Raising the threshold could deprive them, and other artists, of future royalties.

‘For the sake of royalty payments of around £32, raising this threshold will disenfranchise younger and emerging artists as their works resell in the UK art market,’ says Gilane Tawadros, Chief Executive of DACS, the Design and Artists Copyright Society.

‘Resale royalties are a valuable investment in the life blood of the UK’s art market at a time when public funding cuts are significantly reducing artists’ incomes.’ says artist, Stuart Semple.

‘I’m amazed some parts of the art market are still fighting a rear-guard action against the Artist’s Resale Right. Without artists there would be no art market,’ says Chris Bryant MP, a long-standing supporter of the resale right.

Since the Right was introduced in 2006, DACS has paid artists more than £15 million in resale royalties.

While the resale royalties are modest, they are meaningful to artists as research shows that in 2010 the median wage for a fine artist was only £10,000.

Artists are being asked to make their views known to Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt via Twitter: @Jeremy_Hunt with hashtag #resaleright ".

Apart from the novelty of asking artists to tweet their views -- which may not be much use unless the tweets can be expected to arrive in vast quantities, given the ephemeral nature of the medium -- there is also the welcome spectacle of DACS doing what some organisations have yet to do with any great degree of conviction: basing their call to action on actual figures.  But there's still something missing in this equation: there are no corresponding figures cited for the art trade itself.  If it can be shown that art traders are flourishing, in whole or in part, then the contrast between the income of artists and dealers can be shown in stark contrast.  If it turns out that the trade is struggling as much as the artists, or more so, then it may be that the strange, uncomfortable and partially symbiotic relationship between artists and the art trade needs a radical re-think.

Artist Resale Royalty, Harmonisation and a Comment from Down Under

Following Monday's post ("Artist's Royalty Right: not as much impact as was hoped/feared"), The 1709 Blog has received the following thoughts and observations from a pair of Australians Dr Anne Sanders (an art historian) and John R Walker (an artist), who write:

"We have been following developments with regard to the derogation concerning the resale royalty legislation in the UK. Australia has recently enacted an artist resale royalty legislation that differs in major ways from the scheme created by DACS in the UK. The scheme adopted in Australia is nothing like the scheme that was lobbied for by DACS’ sister organisation, Viscopy (Australia). The tender for the implementation of the Australian scheme was not awarded to Viscopy (the CEO of Viscopy is Joanna Cave, ex CEO of DACS). The sole official Australian agency appointed by the government for the implementation and collection of the resale royalty is the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). 

The Australian resale royalty scheme is not in any way a precedent for the adoption of a fully retrospective, compulsory scheme, as envisaged by DACS. The resale royalty differs so much from one country to another as to beg the question: harmonising with what? The UK is being forced to harmonise with a phantom construct. The EU directives are very vague on important detail and the Berne Convention expressly forbids formalities such as compulsory, collective management (rhe Berne Convention Article 5(2) expressly forbids any member country imposing registration on a rights holder as a condition of protecting his copyright. The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality). Any claim that there is a single, uniform model of artists resale royalty is extremely dishonest. 

The scheme, as it exists in the UK, is already a violation of the fundamental concepts that it claims to honour. The current push to further extend it in the UK continues the violation of both copyright as an individual right of control of usage and of the Berne Convention’s requirement that there be no imposed formalities. The imposition of retrospectivity, under Australia’s constitution, raised fatal difficulties under two sections of the constitution; one of which deals with unjust enrichment and the other with what are effectively privatised, tax collections (such as hypothecated taxes). 

The Australian Act is not retrospective; it does not apply to the first resale of artworks that were purchased prior to the introduction of the scheme (9 June 2010). The scheme is not compulsory for artists. There is a case-by-case freedom (Clauses 22 & 23) to refuse consent to collection and if an artist wishes to, they can make their own arrangements regarding collection. Neither usage of the right nor collective management is compulsory. The foundational ethos of Australia’s polity is democratic, community-minded, pragmatic and liberal. In Australia, retrospective violation of individual property rights and compulsory collective management need much stronger justification than payments of benefits to those artists most favoured by the market. 

Speaking as a successful mid-career artist, retrospectivity, for me, is morally wrong. I have no right to and certainly don’t deserve a royalty on resales of the hundreds of artworks I have sold at good prices to buyers years ago; buyers who were innocent of the knowledge of a future royalty. These buyers gave me bread and wine for my journey. I am grateful for the help and support they gave me. If I had been forced to collect the royalty then I would, as a matter of conscience, have returned all of the money including the collection fee to the person it had been stolen from. 

Resale Royalties are of doubtful net value to artists. In 2004, Viscopy commissioned Australia’s highly respected economic modelling agency, Access Economics, to model the likely impact of the fully retrospective, and very draconian scheme, that Viscopy was lobbying for. In this report, Access Economics warned that the claim of net benefit to artists was: “based upon extremely unrealistic assumptions, in particular the assumption that seller and buyer behaviour would be completely unaffected by the introduction of RRR [ARR]” and that, “Access Economics considers that the results of this analysis are both unhelpful and potentially misleading” (see Access Economics' report). Viscopy suppressed this report. 

The harm caused by such schemes is in the form of what doesn’t happen, and therefore the harm is easily overlooked and underestimated. When an artist, such as myself, sells a painting for $10,000, I pay $4,000 to the costs of sales and marketing (through my representative agent) and retain $6,000 as income. In the case of $10,000 resale, I would receive $500 (according to the Australian scheme with its flat 5% rate). If buyer nervousness about the resale royalty, was to cause me to lose just one $10,000 first sale (on the primary market), I would need the royalty owed on $120,000 of future resales to recoup the lost income of that one primary market sale. These are very unattractive odds. 

The only clear beneficiary of the DACS model of the resale royalty scheme is the management of this piece of transaction fee velocity. The correct term for schemes such as this, and their advocates, is ‘rent-seeking’. The largest single payment will always be to the costs of running the scheme. In the current financial situation, the last thing needed is the imposition of further transaction costs on any market. 

The compulsory scheme advocated by DACS and Viscopy is a monopoly restriction of the terms of trade of artists. It is anti-market, anti-competitive and economically illiterate. It imposes significant opportunity costs upon artists as well as significant and unnecessary transaction costs upon the market in which artists make their living. For many artists, maximising first sale prices is a much better bet than gambling on payments when you are old or dead. 

The only argument for extending the scheme to long-dead artists is to further increase payments to management. The proposed extension of the UK scheme is rent-seeking par excellence. The principles of a free, civil society are far more important than the secondary, instrumentalist goals of efficiency and convenience for managements. 

We should not forgot to mention that the Australian legislation for an artists' resale right is sui generis; it was thought to be too tax-like to be incorporated as an amendment to the Commonwealth Copyright Act, hence recognising the profoundly different definitions and intentions of 'royalty' and 'tax', a point that has escaped the proponents of compulsory, collective management. It is significant again in that it does not conform to the harmonisation argument and being sui generis, does not compromise or set a precedent within the Copyright Act that encourages a diminuition of individual right of control".

This blog welcomes comments from Australia, from Europe and indeed from elsewhere on these observations.

Artist's Royalty Right: not as much impact as was hoped/feared

Writing in the first issue of Sweet & Maxwell's Entertainment Law Review (Ent.LR) for 2011, at pp.22-24,, Simone Blakeney (Harbottle & Lewis) provides a welcome report on the impact on the Artist's Resale Right (ARR) on art sales in the United Kingdom.  According to the abstract,

"The publication by the British Art Market Federation of a study it commissioned from Art Economics on the British Art Market, and the simultaneous updating of the Government's Briefing Paper on the Artist's Resale Right, on July 1, 2010, renewed the UK debate on resale rights. But what is it really all about? Because the debate seems to have continued for years, one can be excused for losing the thread. This article reviews the current position".

What is the current position? The author concludes by asking whether the ARR benefit artists and supports the industry or merely undermines it and threatens the success of the UK art market, concluding thus:

"There are numerous factors to consider on both sides of the argument. It can certainly be argued that it has not really been shown that there has been a dramatic effect on the artists and that the ARR has only benefited a small number of artists, within the framework of the art market as a whole. Accordingly, why risk damaging a valuable market for potentially little return or benefit. 

However, what is clear is that it has not been demonstrated that the implementation of the ARR has had any negative impact on the British art market. Art sales have not moved overseas to jurisdictions where there is no ARR. In fact, the art market survives, as it did following the introduction of VAT (arguably a far more cumbersome payment obligation), and has continued to rapidly grow and flourish. 

Thus, while it is difficult to judge the effect of a law on a specialist market, in this case the changes that have already taken place appear to have had little negative impact on the British art market and the future change is unlikely to either. Therefore, though the implementation of the ARR to the works of deceased artists was delayed, it is very unlikely that it will not be introduced. Indeed, it is expected that the ARR directive will be fully implemented in the United Kingdom from the beginning of 2012, when finally sales of the works of both living and deceased artists will attract the ARR payment".

News and views: snippets from Russia and Australia

The 1709 Blog's mailbox receives some interesting bits of news and comment. Just in are two items worth sharing with readers:

* Sasha Yelnik writes to tell us that, during a World IP Day meeting, the director of the Russian Authors' Society RAS said that the time has come to establish specialised courts that would deal only with copyright and the related matters. She adds:

"His suggestion was based on the increasing number and complexity of copyright infringement claims. Mr Fedotov from RAS thinks that the main reason for the phenomenon is the "legal nihilism that has become entrenched in the minds of the largest part of the society". Another problem which requires an urgent solution (which was not proposed at the meeting) is licensing music downloads from the internet (see Pravo here, in Russian) I think it is a big achievement that the need for specialised courts has been voiced and recognised but -- knowing the speed with which anything requiring at least a bit of formality is happening in Russia -- the realisation of the idea seems unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future".

* Anne Sanders (AAPT) writes on the subject of artists' resale royalties and asks: "Is the UK aware of the detail of Australian legislation?" She explains:

"It is nothing like the compulsory statutory licence that the the copyright agencies pursued. In fact, it is a poor precedent from their point of view. I believe that the agencies in the EU & UK might mention the royalty being adopted in Australia but forget to mention that:

(a) individual artists have an individual right to waive the royalty on a case-by-case basis (Clauses 22/23).

(b) the royalty will only apply to the first resales of artworks purchased AFTER the introduction of the legisalation. There is no royalty imposed upon the first resales of artworks purchase in the decades before the introduction of the act.

(c) the Australian scheme is sui generis - it is not an extension of copyright because even in its current form it is , too tax-like under our constitution to be part of copyright".

Resale rights: the Dali ruling

Yesterday, in Case C‑518/08, Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí and Visual Entidad de Gestión de Artistas Plásticos (VEGAP) v Société des auteurs dans les arts graphiques et plastiques (ADAGP) and others, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on how the meaning of Article 6(1) of the EU's Resale Right Directive 2001/84.

The ruling was prompted by French proceedings in which the court wanted to know whether resale right royalties for French sales of Salvador Dalí's works should be payable to (i) the sole legatee appointed in the painter's will -- this being his Fundación -- or (ii) his legal heirs, as French domestic law requires. According to Article 6(1) of the Directive, Member States had to introduce the resale right by 1 January 2006, entitling an artist or, after death, "those entitled under him" to receive that royalty when their original works of art were resold. But what did "those entitled under him" mean?

According to the Court of Justice, there was nothing in Article 6(1) to stop the French limiting the benefit of the resale right to the author's heirs, even if that was to the exclusion of legatees or other successors in title. Nor was there anything in the Directive to rule out the application of rules for resolving conflict of national laws on succession. In short, it's for the referring court to take due account of all relevant rules for resolving conflicts of laws relating to the transfer on succession of the resale right.

As in the case of other IP rights and pseudo-rights, issues involving the ownership and devolution of the resale right are clearly seen in the EU as a fit subject for national law rather than for harmonisation. While testamentary disposition does not normally affect the manner in which the single market works in Europe, it can leave messy and inconvenient loose ends for heirs -- and bodies representing them -- to deal with.

Better a live dealer than a dead artist

A press release from the United Kingdom's Intellectual Property Office today, "UK extends the derogation on Artists Resale Right for two years", conveys depressing news for dead artists:

"In 2008, the UK Government notified the European Commission that it intended to maintain its existing derogation from resale right for the works of deceased artists for a further two years. The instrument that extended this derogation was laid today and will come into effect on the 1 December 2009.

Resale right entitles authors of original works of art, such as paintings, engravings, sculpture and ceramics, to receive a royalty each time one of their works is resold in a sale involving an art market professional.

The decision to extend the derogation comes after consultation with a wide range of stakeholders including artists and traders [This rather creates the impression that the product of the consultation is some sort of consensus. The 'stakes' of artists and of traders are not however entirely congruent with one another].

Ministers decided that the current economic climate would accentuate the difficulty the art market would face when coping with the application of artist’s resale right to the works of deceased artists [Are the works of deceased artists more difficult to cope with than the works of live ones? And is this a precedent of sorts for treating the position of dead authors less favourably than the living in other areas, eg when dealing with 'orphan works', applications for injunctive relief or fair dealing?].

This extension to the derogation will apply until January 2012. The extension means that in the UK, resale right will apply to works by living artists only [note for slightly puzzled readers: you thought the word 'only' referred to the word 'until' which follows it and not to the word 'apply' which precedes it] until 1st January 2012".

Now you can practise your Spanish

On Friday we published a reader's inquiry concerning the current position of resale rights in Spain. Thanks to our readers we can now bring you a link to a pdf of the original Spanish text of Law 3/2008, 23 December 2008, here (thank you, Anon, for sending it) -- or you can download it at your leisure here (thank you, Dr Juan José Marín, Civil Law Professor and attorney with Gómez-Acebo & Pombo).

Resale rights in Spain: a reader writes

One of our readers has contacted us to see if he can invoke their collective copyright wisdom:

"I'm trying to find out what happened with the Spanish Artist's Resale Right. You may recall that in January 2008 Spain received a rap on the knuckles from the European Court of Justice for not implementing directive 2001/84. Spain's failure to implement was later noted by the Commission's Internal Market Scoreboard (at page 15). However, the most recent edition of the Scoreboard no longer "names and shames" Spain for its failure to implement the Directive. This suggests the Directive has now been implemented by Spain.

Right: a Spanish legislator, in the depth of despair following the ECJ decision

Would you be able to ask your readers if they have any details of the implementation? I have a short(ish) list of questions (on the variations that are at each member state's discretion when implementing the directive) if anyone is feeling especially helpful. But just a date for when implementation took place would be a good start".

If any reader has the answer, or his happy to be put in touch with our reader, just post a comment below or email me here, marking your email subject line "Spanish Resale".