Blake Richardson wrote:
[snip]> All sorts of scary stuff is happening in Europe
under the umbrella of
"artists' rights". There's a proposal (don't know whether it's made it into
law yet) to give sculptors and painters the right of first refusal on sales
of their work. Under such a system, if you're lucky enough to buy a painting
from the next Picasso, early on in his career when he's unknown, and get the
painting for cheap, only to have it appreciate years later into the millions
due to the artist's fame, you can't sell it and recoup that investment
unless the artist lets you. He can buy it back from you at the price for
which he originally sold it. Fantastic, huh?
That's not what "first refusal" generally means -- so unless
you can quote the law, we might be discussing something
entirely different from what you think.
"First refusal" means that the person who owns that right
must be asked first if he/she will buy the item at the
asking price. If they refuse, then the current owner is
free to sell it to whomever they wish.
If that's what the law says then I don't have much problem
with it as long as the artists themselves don't become
recluses and refuse to make themselves available for
contact. But if Picasso wants to buy his painting back from
me for $10million, that's fine. If not, then someone else
will buy it for $10million, makes no difference to me as
long as I get the $10million. But such a law does give the
now wealthy painter a chance to buy his/her painting back.
If however the law says that the artist must be allowed to
buy the painting back for the original price, I don't think
even the artists will like it because nobody will ever buy
their paintings as investments and so they'll never become
famous and wealthy.
--
David H. Bailey
dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com
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