Copyright Law

"Why should local diggers break their backs and risk arrest when they could stay home and make a cottage industry out of copying ...?"

Posted on May 29, 2009
The LAT's Mike Boehm has more on UCLA's Charles Stanish, author of the article I mentioned here.

"'People have to be practical. They have to be pragmatic. They have to stop being righteous"

Posted on May 28, 2009
Move over, Hugh Davies. I think I have a new favorite museum director. Judith Dobrzynski calls attention to an interview Maxwell Anderson did with the Guggenheim's new director, Richard Armstrong:"[A]round the 40th minute, Max asks about deaccessioning...

Warhol Decision

Posted on May 28, 2009
The NYT's Randy Kennedy reports that "a federal district judge in Manhattan said Tuesday that a class-action lawsuit charging fraud and other misconduct could proceed against the Andy Warhol Foundation and the board that authenticates Warhol's work. The suit was filed by a filmmaker, Joe Simon-Whelan, who bought a Warhol painting ? in 1989 only to see it later declared inauthentic on two occasions by the board ?...

"Copyright in the US is automatic on fixation of a creative work .... Registration is not necessary for basic copyright protection"

Posted on May 27, 2009
Rebecca Tushnet notes a Washington Post story that "confus[es] 'registration' with 'copyright' almost every single time the word 'copyright' appears. ... It is misleading, and potentially quite damaging, to tell authors that 'a claim filed with the government offers legal protection -- it is the only way to stop someone else from copying a work...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

"A case study ... in how not to make and implement hard decisions in the face of an economic crunch"

Posted on May 27, 2009
Felix Salmon on "The Sorry Story of the Rose Art Museum":"Where are we now? Well, the Rose is essentially dead ? its donors have rescinded their pledges, artists are asking for artwork back, the director has been fired, and it has no chance of being able to raise a penny in new money any longer...

Update on the Brodsky Bill

Posted on May 27, 2009
The NYCBA Art Law Committee recently sent a letter to Assemblyman Brodsky, regarding his proposed museum deaccessioning bill. You can read the letter here (courtesy of Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento).I'm opposed to the bill in its entirety -- I'm one of those who, as their letter puts it, "maintain that uniform restrictions on the use of deaccessioning proceeds may not neccessarily serve the best interest of the institutions or the public" -- like Christopher Knight, I think we can "trust [our] tax-subsidized museum professionals to use their art collections wisely and for [our] benefit" -- but, if we have to have the legislation, the Committee makes some good suggestions for making it a little less bad...

Raw Deals

Posted on May 27, 2009
A reader sends a link to an odd story from the Central Pennsylvania Patriot-News, under the headline Raw deal: Pennsylvania artwork now under U.S. Postal Service copyright. Apparently the U.S. Postal Service is preventing certain publicly-funded New Deal artworks from being photographed, but if so, my guess is that they are doing so not because the work is "now under Postal Service copyright," but, rather, because it's on their property, and they aren't obligated to allow people onto their property to take pictures...

Deaccessioning as Settlement Tool

Posted on May 26, 2009
Judith Dobrzynski reports that the National Gallery of Art "has just agreed to transfer the ownership of a painting on view there, Chaim Soutine's Piece of Beef, to the family of a prior owner" in settlement of a lawsuit. The suit "was brought by the estate of Lorette Jolles Shefner of Montreal against the National Gallery and Maurice Tuchman and Esti Dunow, the authors of the Soutine catalogue raisonné, about a year ago...

Symbolism

Posted on May 26, 2009
Friend of the Barnes Evelyn Yaari responds via email to my post last week wondering what difference it would make if the Delaware River Port Authority rescinded its $500,000 in funding for the move to Philadelphia:"This particular grant is distinctive because it is public money and because the DRPA is a regional governmental body...

"When people say, 'You can't sell the art,' I say, 'OK, can we close five departments on campus?' Tell me what I can do. This is the problem"

Posted on May 26, 2009
The Jerusalem Post had a lengthy piece this weekend on Brandeis and the Rose Museum, which "had come to embody the legacy of the postwar generation of American Jewish art collectors, many of them successful entrepreneurs who rose from immigrant tenements to university boards through sheer force of will and imagination...

"Institutions of every stripe are scrambling for survival in a recession draining them dry of funds"

Posted on May 26, 2009
The Toronto Star had a piece this weekend on the deaccessioning debate. I'm quoted as follows:"So an argument exists against an art-for-art, AMMD-approved, deaccessioning-only model. Why can there never be any other 'use of proceeds,' wonders New York lawyer Donn Zaretsky, 'no matter how important to an institution's mission?' So here's the question: Might the sale of some lesser pieces by the Toronto school board help pave the way for the next Alex Baumann, who could train in the board's revitalized swimming pools...

Let's Go to the Videotape

Posted on May 26, 2009
Bloomberg's Philip Boroff has more on collector Gregory Callimanopulos's lawsuit against Christie's (mentioned earlier here). In its response to Callimanopulos's motion for preliminary injunction, Christie's says "video recordings of the [May 13] Auction conclusively show that [another bidder] made a bid for the Artwork well before [the auctioneer] brought down the hammer ...

"We are absolutely at a point in this economy where these sort of things have to be on the table"

Posted on May 22, 2009
Tamar Lewin in today's New York Times: "Brandeis University said this week that it would suspend payments to the retirement accounts of faculty and staff members starting in July."The article closes with the following:"Brandeis, founded in 1948 in Waltham, Mass...

Minor Sale

Posted on May 22, 2009
The Art Market Monitor notes that one of the works involved in Halsey Minor's dispute with Sotheby's -- a Childe Hassam painting he bought for $3.9m last Fall, but refused to pay for after discovering that the auction house hadn't disclosed that it had an interest in another work he bought at the same time -- sold this week for $2...

Sold (UPDATED)

Posted on May 22, 2009
Two of the three Eakins paintings -- or, as I like to think of them, works which, having fallen under the aegis of a museum, were held in the public trust, to be accessible to present and future generations -- the Hirshhorn recently announced it was deaccessioning were sold at Christie's this week and therefore will not be accessible to present and future generations...

Still Fighting

Posted on May 21, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin reports that "opponents of moving the Barnes Foundation art collection from Merion to Philadelphia asked members of the Delaware River Port Authority ... to rescind $500,000 in funding for the move yesterday."It's not clear to me what impact this would have in any event...

"The treatment of consignment in bankruptcy has often been described as mystifying"

Posted on May 20, 2009
Another good art-law related student note: Hilary Jay, "A Picture Imperfect: The Rights of Art Consignor-Collectors When Their Art Dealer Files For Bankruptcy," in the Duke Law Journal. She does a nice job showing what a mess the existing law is, and makes some suggestions for fixing things, including extending state statutory protections for artist-consignors to collector-consignors.

Art Theft Recs

Posted on May 20, 2009
R.A. Scotti, author of the recently published "Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa" (see here), recommends some other books on art theft.

Bid Battle

Posted on May 19, 2009
Bloomberg's Philip Boroff reports that "Gregory Callimanopulos, a shipping magnate and collector, said in a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court that Christie?s improperly reopened bidding for [a Sam Francis] painting ... after his $3 million telephone bid was accepted by the auctioneer...

"The Rose, as we have known it, is closing"

Posted on May 18, 2009
Geoff Edgers stops by the Rose Museum on the last day of its "final curated exhibtions."

Difficult Choices

Posted on May 16, 2009
One of the arguments Lee Rosenbaum likes to make against deaccessioning is the following:"Perhaps an analogy might help them understand what's really at stake. If someone were to suggest that funds be raised by selling important books from the library, that (one hopes) would be a non-starter: Books go to the core of the college's educational mission...

"We are not in the business of upsetting and alienating our donors and community"

Posted on May 16, 2009
Interesting sidebar on the Montclair Art Museum deaccessioning: the museum has "decided not to auction off [a] 104-year-old portrait of one of its founders after his descendants complained that the memory of the Montclair civic leader was being disrespected...

"The second major art heist in 10 days in the Netherlands"

Posted on May 15, 2009
Details here. Here was the first one. The Art Market Monitor says "both highlight the problems of security in small museums."

Chilly

Posted on May 15, 2009
Back in November I mentioned a NY state court decision that I said "could have far-reaching implications for the auction houses." Judd Tully wrote about the case in the February Art+Auction, noting that it had "sent a chill down the collective spines of the major auction houses...

"Despite the promising effects of the TTCA, some disincentives to fractional giving still remain"

Posted on May 15, 2009
Honorable mention in the 2009 Paul Faherty Tax Writing Competition for law students went to Kristina Gordon of Loyola-Chicago for her (cleverly titled) Where is My Monet? Museums and Donors Lose an Important Incentive for Fractional Giving. (I appreciate the props in various footnotes...

Davis Suit

Posted on May 15, 2009
Josh Baer: "Earl Davis, the son of Stuart Davis, has sued dealer Michael Altman over 2 paintings. In the first he alleges that Altman never paid the estate on a $2 million sale to Alice Walton and the other is part of the Salander fiasco where he alleges Altman took a painting from Salander without proper title...

Fairly Straightforward

Posted on May 14, 2009
The rigid formalism of the AAMD/AAM position on deaccessioning (sales to buy more art -- totally fine, knock yourself out; sales for any and all other reasons -- repulsive) leads its defenders to say some odd-sounding things, at least to my ear. Here's an example, from a story in the Newark Star-Ledger yesterday entitled "Sale of art linked to financial woes by Montclair museum sparks debate...

"This case has profound implications for artists' rights"

Posted on May 12, 2009
Last fall I wrote about "another frustrating VARA decision," this time involving artist Chapman Kelley's Wildflower work in Chicago. Kelley has now filed his appellate brief with the Seventh Circuit, relying primarily on the grounds I described in my earlier post:1...

"An absence of clues meant an abundance of theories, and Scotti advances them all in a collection of arresting but disparate narratives"

Posted on May 12, 2009
Yesterday's NYT Book Review included a review of "Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa," one of two new books on the 1911 crime (see earlier post here). You can read the first chapter of the book here. Another review from the Times here.

"Finding an answer of what's best to do with a valuable painting is difficult"

Posted on May 12, 2009
The Wilmington Library in Delaware is selling 14 N.C. Wyeth illustrations "to pay for $5 million in major improvements." Story here. "No one is sadder than we are," says the president of the library's board of managers. "We love the paintings but we also love the building and want to keep the library in the building and make improvements in tough economic times...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.