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Guerrilla Hacking the Art World: Legal Issues in Unsanctioned Augmented Reality in Museums and Public Art

September 15, 2022

an image of a Jeff Koons like puppy sculpture on a loan or Central Park in NYC

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The Mauritshuis, home of the Girl with a Pearl Ear

The Mauritshuis, home of the Girl with a Pearl Earring, incorporates VR presentations into the telling of the history of the 10 looted objects in the show “Loot: 10 stories”. Among the 10 objects are a staff in the shape of a female figure that belonged to the Maroon people of Suriname during Dutch colonial times and a 1669 Rembrandt self-portrait that was stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family and stored in a salt mine during WWII.

Unlike other important exhibitions at European museums that focus on one topic, this exhibition unprecedentedly shows colonial pillage, Napoleon’s plunder, and Nazi-looted art under one roof, aiming to emphasize the difference between the three and the need to devise tailored solutions to restitution.

The show is on view from 14 September 2023 - 7 January 2024 in The Hague, Netherlands. Read more about the show via link in bio.

#loot #thehague #mauritshuis

Mark your calendars because our next Visual Artist

Mark your calendars because our next Visual Artists’ Immigration Clinic is next month! Catered towards international visual artists, this clinic aims to help emerging and established artists obtain their visas to the United States.

The first 30 minutes of this clinic will be devoted to our Keynote Address by Teresa Woods Peña, Principal Attorney at Woods Law Group, P.C. Following this, participating artists will be paired up with Volunteer Attorneys (Rakhel Milstein, Milstein Law Group; Cielomar Puccio, Brandlett Law; Kimberly Xavier, Covey Law; Michael Lehach, Lehach & Filippa, LLP; Teresa Woods Peña, Woods Law Group, P.C.) to receive a confidential 15-minute consultation.

The registration for this clinic can be found in our bio. We hope to see you there!

The US Constitution bestows on creators a limited

The US Constitution bestows on creators a limited monopoly to exploit their Intellectual Property (IP). Technology gives freedom to disseminate creative content further and sometimes beyond creators’ explicit permissions. In the self-help digital age, what tools do artists have to protect their work against infringement on physical mediums or digital platforms? When sharing files and making unpublished work public, how can we keep track of dissemination of intellectual property? Copyright registration can be an expensive process and may not always be the easiest route for artists and creatives who have several works to register. Are there any alternative routes available for artists to prove ownership of their work and protect it from infringement? It can be especially challenging in a time of social media where works are shared and re-shared without appropriate credit, licensing or attribution. So how can artists better protect themselves? 🤔

Join the Center for Art Law in conversation with Andy Rosen, photographer and founder of File Protected; Scott Scholder, copyright attorney and partner at Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard and moderator, Irina Tarsis, attorney and founder at the Center for Art Law. This session will explore copyright law, the issues of ownership, licensing and the limitations that copyright law can impose on creatives. Andy Rosen will focus on his experiences and challenges faced as a photographer and artist which led him to founding FileProtected, platform that helps content creators protect and monetize intellectual property and registers work on the blockchain as a supplement to copyright, Scott Scholder will discuss the challenges that copyright poses, licensing, use of blockchain technology and alternative platforms that may be helpful to artists when protecting their work and licensing work to others. 🎨 ⚖️ 👩‍💻

Register via the link in our bio!

#ArtLaw #Art #Law #CenterForArtLaw #Blockchain #IPLaw #IntellectualProperty #IntellectualPropertyLaw #Copyright #CopyrightLaw #Licensing #Artists

A 2021 survey by the American Alliance of Museums

A 2021 survey by the American Alliance of Museums highlighted that the American public regards museums as “highly trustworthy,” a statistic only surpassed by “friends and family.” Museums are considered more reliable than teachers or books as a source of historical information. The question raised by Melina Sakellaris is whether the public’s trust is well-founded.

Evidence points to the direction that the acquisition approach of prominent museums was more like treasure hunters than professionals until the UNESCO 1970 Convention was signed. Now the public reexamines the colonial legacy of institutions and seeks restorative justice, transparency has become a central issue in the public accountability of museums. Rather than being subjected to the same level of scrutiny as public agencies regarding their fiduciary duties, museums rely on self-imposed or peer-imposed regulations. By no means this mode of spontaneous regulation is not effective. However, there’s much to be done to unroot the old policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”.

Read the article via link in bio!

About the author: Melina Sakellaris (2023 Summer intern) is completing her B.A. at Columbia with a major in Human Rights and a concentration in Art History, after having received a B.A. in Politics and Government from Sciences Po. She wishes to explore the art world through a legal lens, empowering artists and art professionals in a flourishing and dynamic art world.

#museums #decolonize #unesco1970

Freddie Mercury has passed for 32 years. Mary Aust

Freddie Mercury has passed for 32 years. Mary Austin, the ex-fiancée and later the Queen star’s confidante and life partner, decided to part with Mercury’s belongs via auction. The ground-breaking Sotheby's auction entitled Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own was on display in London from August 4 until September 5, which would have marked the star's 77th birthday. The first night of the sale went off on September 6 saw bidders from 61 countries drove 93% of lots over their estimate. Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics and Freddie’s Yamaha piano led the sale.

For some fans, the auction is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to own a piece that belonged to the star. But others contest that Mercury would have never auctioned off his possessions, and the items should go to a museum for the public to commemorate his legend. The legal issue underlined by the controversy is tax and estate planning. The Center continue with our Estate Planning Clinic this fall. RSVP for the session scheduled on December 13 at 5 p.m via link in bio.

#freddiemercury #queen #freddiemercuryauction #sothebys #estateplanning

A landmark cultural heritage case was decided on M

A landmark cultural heritage case was decided on May 15, 2023. Florence’s Gallerie dell’Accademia prevailed in its legal battle to secure its image rights to Michelangelo’s iconic David sculpture. The Gallerie initiated the lawsuit against the publishing house Edizioni Conde Nast, who appropriated the 16th-century sculpture’s likeness three years prior for the cover of GQ Italia in an “openly advertising key” and without acquiring a permit from the museum.

How did the court resolve the paradox that emerges when considering the notions of private ownership and public domain? Head to Kouros Sadeghi-Nejad’s article to find out how the court interpreted the Italian Constitution and Cultural Heritage Code to regulate the commercial use of cultural heritage. Link in bio!

About the author: Kouros Sadeghi-Nejad (2023 Summer intern) is a recent graduate from NYU with a BA in Art History and Political Science. His current research interests focus on international art market regulations and copyright protection.

#david #italianculturalheritage

👩‍💻 👨‍🎨 🧑‍⚖️ Artists, dea

👩‍💻 👨‍🎨 🧑‍⚖️ Artists, dealers, and collectors’ archives are the cornerstone of scholarly research. Often assembled over decades, they contain a wide array of materials ranging from photographs and letters to financial documents and records that are crucial to art historical studies. However, because copyright in these materials is often layered, determining who owns copyright and how much of these materials can be made available to the public constitute an important part of the work conducted by the institutions that steward them. How are new data privacy laws going to impact existing rules and best practices? What are some of the questions these repositories should ask themselves as they are increasingly releasing archival collections that contain personal information online? Join the Center for Art Law as we discuss some of the challenges faced by art organizations and businesses that collect, preserve, and disseminate archival collections in the digital age.

Sandrine Canac, Director of Digital Archival Projects at The Wildenstein Plattner Institute will discuss archival standards and practices, digitization and online distribution of archival collections. Joelys Mendez, Associate at Wilson Elser will discuss what data privacy laws apply to, what the “data” is, who is collecting it, how it is used and how to access this information keeping in mind privacy and confidentiality considerations. The session will be moderated by Jana Farmer, Partner at Wilson Elser and Board of Advisors at Center for Art Law.

CLE: This course or program is pending approval in accordance with the requirements of the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board for a maximum of 1 credit hour in Professional Practice, acceptable for transitional credit for established and newly admitted attorneys. If you are experiencing financial hardship and need assistance for the purchase of a legal professional ticket specifically, please fill out our financial aid application, available via the link in our bio.

Register for the event via the link in our bio!

#ArtLaw #Art #Law #CLE #CLECredit #PrivacyLaw #DigitalAge #CenterForArtLaw

Renowned Chinese artist Ye Yongqing discovered Bel

Renowned Chinese artist Ye Yongqing discovered Belgian artist Christian Silvan’s works at an exhibition in Paris in the 90s. He admired Silvan’s visual language so much that he started to copy the latter’s works. Ye, not satisfied with learning from the artist, built a thriving carer by plagiarizing Silvan’s repertoire. It is estimated that a painting made by Ye sold at auction could reach €400,000. China Daily calculated that Yongqing had grossed nearly $15 million (€13.8 million).

Ye’s career began to unravel in 2019 as his popularity grew. Several days ago, after 4 years of litigation, a Beijing court ordered Yongqing to pay €650,000 in damages to Silvain and make a public apology in the media.

The image below is a comparison between works from Silvan (left) and Ye (right). Do you agree with the Beijing court that plagiarism is obvious? Would the outcome be different if fair use doctrine was considered?

Source: https://buff.ly/3Ratw7A
Image credit: weibo
#plagirism #yeyongqing #christiansilvan

The world of art crime and the superheroes who hel

The world of art crime and the superheroes who help save the day – such as the Art Loss Register – are the subjects covered by Anja Shortland in her book Lost Art: The Art Loss Register Casebook Vol. This book, based on ten cases from the Art Loss Register (hereinafter the ALR) archives, continuously makes the reader feel as though they are inside Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch instead of a non-fiction casebook.

How did ALR negotiate with thieves who exposed themselves from requesting insurance on stolen art? What is the story of a multimillion-dollar artwork in the attic? If you are intrigued but not sure about investing the time to get the book yet, head to the book review written by Caitlin O’Hare, a master’s student at the University of Glasgow and Summer 2023 intern for the Center for Art Law, to find out more about the book!

Access the review via link in bio.

#artcrime #lostart #artlossregister #bookrecommendation

OpenSea’s CEO Devin Finzer announced that the Op

OpenSea’s CEO Devin Finzer announced that the Operator Filter, launched in November 2022, will sunset on August 31, 2023 in a blog post (read it via link in bio). The Operator Filter is a tool that empowers creators by restricting the sale of their collections to Web3 marketplaces that enforce creator fees in secondary sales.

Several factors led to the termination. Firstly, OpenSea observed that several Web3 marketplaces circumvent the Operator Filter to avoid enforcing creator fees on their platforms. Moreover, the tool reportedly weakens the creators' and collectors' sense of control over their collections. Lastly, OpenSea claims that creator fees are just one of many revenue streams available to creators in Web3, and the company’s role is to empower innovation beyond a single use case.

Finzer shared that the company has dedicated a large part of its resources to power new use cases– starting with digital and physical redeemables. However, does the potential of multiple revenue streams for creators justify making resale royalties optional?

It is sad to see OpenSea joining the NFT sector-wide trend of phasing out the actual tangible benefits to artists.

#opensea #resaleroyalties #createrfees #nft

⚖️ Are all visual artworks protected by copyri

⚖️ Are all visual artworks protected by copyright law? What rights do you, as an artist, have to control the use of your work? What rights or limitations do you have to use someone else’s work? Can someone else’s idea inspire another protected work of art? What is “fair use” and when does using another’s work become “infringement”? 🖼️

Join the Center for Art Law for a refresher on copyright and fair use. This presentation is developed for artists with basic and not so basic questions, when faced with collectors or museums seeking to reproduce your work without asking for a license. Review/learn about the fundamentals, laws and landmark cases in copyright, the accompanying rights granted to a copyright holder, the principles of fair use defense and the importance of copyright for artists in a social media driven and digital world. Hypotheticals and case studies will be discussed to see how copyright law applies to common challenges faced by artists navigating legal issues in the art world.

***ATTENTION PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS: This event is free for all current premium member subscribers. Email us for your CODE (or check your email for the hidden code)! ***

About the speaker:
Atreya Mathur | Director of Legal Research Atreya Mathur is the Director of Legal Research at the Center for Art Law. She received her Master of Laws from New York University School of Law where she specialized in Competition, Innovation, and Information Laws, with a focus on copyright, intellectual property, and art law. She is an attorney from India and also co-founded m e r a k i consultancy, a consultancy service focused on legal academia and higher education in law.

At the Center she conducts legal research on an array of art and law related topics including copyright law, artificial intelligence and art, contracts, artists rights, estates and legal issues in contemporary and digital art. She publishes articles; conducts and teaches art & law workshops; addresses legal inquiries, contract reviews and conducts interviews with artists on general legal concerns.

Register for the event via the link in our bio!

In September 2022, the world's attention turned to

In September 2022, the world's attention turned to Iran following the tragic death of a 22-year-old individual in police custody due to non-compliance with dress code regulations. This incident ignited a global social movement in solidarity with Iranian women and girls in their efforts to establish their fundamental human rights against the current authoritarian occupying forces. As the world responded to the call, art became a poignant medium of expression. The Guggenheim Museum in New York unveiled a powerful display of red banners cascading from its rotunda, masterminded by an anonymous artist collective. In New York’s Four Freedoms Park, a multimedia exhibition took place titled "Eyes on Iran" in New York City with artwork from Iranian artists including Shirin Neshat overlooking the United Nations plaza and facilitating public engagement. Mozaik Philanthropy curated an online art exhibition that spotlighted contemporary Iranian artistry that not only allowed for a wider, global reach but also provided an added layer of security, ensuring the anonymity and safety of the participating artists. These artistic demonstrations are examples that demonstrate how art can act as a bridge, connecting suppressed voices to the international community and illuminating pressing issues.

Set against the backdrop of Iran’s current state of affairs, the panel will delve into the transformative role art plays in advocating for marginalized groups, challenging oppressive norms, and navigating the complex legal challenges that often accompany such expressions of dissent. The burgeoning artistic output in the wake of Iran’s protests, both domestic and diasporic, is characterized by a fiery spirit and determination for change. While some artists opt for discreet expressions of political defiance, others audaciously challenge traditional norms with innovative adaptations of revolutionary slogans.

Join us for a thought-provoking panel discussion where renowned academics, activists, and artists confront the realities of rights, regulations, and the intersection of culture and law.

Register via the link in our bio!

#Art #Law #ArtLaw #CenterForArtLaw #Iran #MENARegion

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