Artists Rewardable – Private Droit De Suite Systems via Online Service (アート流通ビジネス／追求権)

(アート流通ビジネスや追求権に関するブログ記事、LinkedInから再掲)

(I am an official tour guide staff of The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo as well as a lawyer.) 

 Most artists cannot enjoy good reputation during their lives – only a few exceptions like Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons exists. Even when artists get to be recognized while they are still alive, they cannot always receive sufficient payment from market evaluation, because most expensive transactions of artworks are done at “secondary market” – second or later sales between collectors/galleries. It is told that there is USD 5 to 7 trillion art market all over the world, but the artist him/herself is not often involved, as the artist has already sold an artwork at the first transaction – at the “primary market”. In addition, in Japan, it is told that the price of the first sale from an artist would be even modest (i.e., cheaper) regardless of his/her prior artworks’ prices at secondary market, – because in Japanese practice a gallery which manages an artist tends to restrain the first sale price in order to evade sudden ups and downs of the artworks’ valuation. Some western countries have enacted artist’s right to receive economic benefit from secondary market. 

 For instance, I understand in France, “droit de suite” – resale right is in place which grands artists their right to receive 3% of the transaction price. However, Japanese intellectual property laws do not provide such right. Takashi Murakami has tried to create structured resale right. He contracted, after dispute with a gallery, to receive 1% of contract prices at an auction, as the royalty to use photos of his artwork in an auction catalog book to the extent the artwork is actually sold at the auction. 

 It is difficult for the artist’s end to establish the resale right, but web-service platformer may change the situation by creating an art auction platform which includes an automatic payment structure to an artist of a certain percentage of sale prices at the secondary market – the certain amount will be subtracted from the payment by purchaser. Here, another issue arises – on what condition would a collector dares to sell his/her art collection on discount even though he can choose an ordinary sale market? One of the ideas which Startbahn (please see: http://startbahn.jp/en/#) provides is to gather registered collectors and reviewers to the website and a collector/purchaser chooses an artwork referring a reviewer’s recommendation (he/she will be paid when a sale is completed) and artist/seller can choose who he/she sells the artwork to referring to each collector’s current collections. This idea is interesting, and might work better by a huge sale platformer (such as Amazon,) if such artist/seller determines and declares he/she will sell the artworks at the sales platform only, and an artist or the successor provides a certification for the artwork (otherwise the payment from a purchaser to an artist can be regarded as a gift with no consideration for tax purpose). Image retrieval mechanism to find preferences of members of the market, statistical analysis through SNS services and push notification marketing may also contribute to development of the platform. 

 - End -