Copyright Law

"Museums in this day and age have to learn how to share better"

Posted on December 16, 2008
When I read Carol Vogel's story today about the Brooklyn Museum's decision to transfer ownership of its costume collection to the Met, I found myself wondering what the deaccession police would say about it. After all, here was a museum parting with a collection Vogel tells us is "widely considered one of the best in the world" -- a collection, we have recently been reminded, that, like all museum collections, is held "in trust" for The People, the way a bank holds the assets of its depositors...

MOCA Merger?

Posted on December 16, 2008
The big news today was that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has presented MOCA's board with a plan to merge the two institutions. Diane Haithman and Mike Boehm of the LA Times have the story here, and Haithman talks to LACMA director Michael Govan about the proposal here.

"Is it a logical option? Yes. Is it a probable option? No, probably not"

Posted on December 15, 2008
Lee Rosenbaum breaks the news this evening that "the NY State Board of Regents' Cultural Education Committee this afternoon voted in favor of revised rules ... which would prohibit most museums and historical societies in the state from using deaccession proceeds to defray debts, operating expenses, and most capital expenses...

Trust Me

Posted on December 15, 2008
Lee Rosenbaum posts excerpts from a "ringing manifesto" sent by the president of the American Association of Museums to the NY State Board of Regents on Friday. In them, he makes two main points:1. "With a private collection, you may be able to see it today, but you have no assurance that you will see it tomorrow...

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Ninth Circuit Affirms "Renoir Wars" Decision

Posted on December 15, 2008
Rebecca Tushnet on the "wonderfully chewy case": "The court found the jury?s verdict on false advertising was supported by substantial evidence that the Societe made a false statement in commercial advertising about its own or another?s product."For background, see here.

More MOCA (UPDATED)

Posted on December 15, 2008
Mike Boehm and Kim Christensen's LA Times story this weekend on the financial crisis at LA MOCA mentions the museum's habit of borrowing from restricted funds -- "contributions that donors have made for specific purposes such as acquisitions":"Whether any laws were broken hinges largely on what restrictions were spelled out in gift agreements detailing donors' wishes...

"It was not clear what became of the art"

Posted on December 15, 2008
The Art Market Monitor notices an art connection in the collapse of Dreier LLP. From the New York Times on Saturday:"The law offices themselves ... were like modern art galleries. In court papers filed this week, the comptroller for the law firm reported that $30 million to $40 million of the firm?s assets had been spent on art...

"It's about saving the cultural property of mankind" (UPDATED)

Posted on December 15, 2008
The BBC News on retired FBI Art Crime Special Agent Bob Wittman. "For nearly two decades, usually masquerading as a crooked art dealer with links to the Mafia or the Colombian drug cartels, he has run undercover sting operations, luring criminals into selling him stolen works of art" -- but now he's "forging a new career as a private art-security consultant...

"Is art really this static?" (UPDATED 2X)

Posted on December 11, 2008
Derek Fincham also weighs in on the National Academy deaccessioning, making an interesting comparison with the situation at LA MOCA: "We might point to [MOCA's] financial mismanagement, but how much of this financial difficulty can be focused on the decision to focus on the art itself, on the acclaimed exhibitions...

"I believe history is history and that you can?t turn the clock back"

Posted on December 11, 2008
Sir Norman Rosenthal, exhibitions secretary of the Royal Academy of Arts from 1977 to 2008, argues in The Art Newspaper for an end to Nazi restitution cases: "There should now surely be a statute of limitations on this kind of restitution. If we were still in 1950 and the people who owned the Manet or the Monet were still alive, then it would surely be correct to give these paintings back, but not now and not to grandchildren and great-grandchildren...

Deaccession Questions

Posted on December 10, 2008
In The Amherst New Era Progress, Christa Desrets reports that the former director of Randolph College?s Maier Museum of Art, who resigned in protest over the school?s decision to deaccession four paintings last year, "has been granted a fellowship with the Smithsonian Institution to conduct research for a book on the practice of selling items from museum collections for profit...

Christie's Suit

Posted on December 10, 2008
Josh Baer reports that "Yoon Young Im and Doss Inc have sued Christie?s for $235,000 alleging they sold a work that was claimed to be stolen during WW 2."The Courthouse News has some more details: "A South Korean art collector sued Christie's for $235,500, the amount she paid for a Marie Laurencin 'Portrait' in 1991...

It's On

Posted on December 09, 2008
Peru has finally gone ahead and filed a lawsuit against Yale seeking the return of the school's Machu Picchu artifacts. Paul Needham has the story in the Yale Daily News:"Peru's 31-page complaint ... was lodged in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday by the Washington law firm that has represented Peru since last fall...

Bad Review

Posted on December 08, 2008
From ARTINFO.com:"The Protestant paramilitary Michael Stone has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for attempting to murder Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness during a one-man attack on the Northern Ireland Assembly in November 2006 ...

"Where else in the world can you find something the size of a postcard with paint on it worth $5 million?"

Posted on December 08, 2008
The Miami New Times had a piece last week, timed to coincide with Art Basel, on "the rising tide of international art theft," much of it centered around South Florida. The bottom line:"'The art world is very unregulated, and a lot of deals get done by handshakes and by the dealer's word,' says Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, the Langley-based manager of the FBI's art theft program...

A Basquiat Settlement

Posted on December 08, 2008
Back in April, I mentioned a lawsuit filed by Gerard DeGeer against the Basquiat Authentication Committee, Stellan Holm, and Carl Flach over the Committee's refusal to declare a work DeGeer owned authentic.My friend Ted Poretz, who represented Stellan Holm in the lawsuit, tells me that the lawsuit has now been dismissed and the Basquiat Authentication Committee has reviewed additional materials presented to them and ruled the work genuine.

"Fiduciary duties carried the day. At the end of the day, the directors have a legal duty to the Academy, not the AAMD"

Posted on December 07, 2008
Like Berkeley's Michael O'Hare, Jack Siegel (author of the Desktop Guide for Nonprofit Directors, Officers, and Advisors) thinks the AAMD's apoplexy about the recent sales by the National Academy Museum is unwarranted:"Normally, we agree with AAMD?s tough stand on deaccessioning, particularly if the sales proceeds are used to pay current operating expenses...

CA VARA Case

Posted on December 06, 2008
The Contra Costa Times reports on an interesting VARA suit out of California: "According to the complaint, Frank Romero's automobile-themed 'Going to the Olympics,' a mural which had adorned the Alameda Street underpass of the Hollywood (101) Freeway since 1984, was destroyed by [the California Department of Transportation] in June 2007...

Waxing Apoplectic

Posted on December 06, 2008
Michael O'Hare, Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at Cal-Berkeley, on the AAMD's reaction to the news that the National Academy Museum had sold two paintings:"The sale is conditioned on agreement to display the works, and they're doing it to be able to show more art to more people ...

Another Minor Suit

Posted on December 06, 2008
Collector Halsey Minor, already engaged in a lawsuit with Sotheby's, has now sued Christie's too. The Charlottesville Daily Progress reports:"Minor filed suit against art auctioneer Christie?s Inc. on Wednesday in San Francisco, alleging that the New York-based company had hindered his sale of seven Richard Price paintings worth an estimated $25 million...

"We had a choice of selling or becoming part of the dustbin of history"

Posted on December 05, 2008
It seems the National Academy Museum in New York recently sold two important paintings. Lee Rosenbaum is on the(ir) case. (Like you needed me to tell you that.) She posts a statement from the Association of Art Museum Directors condemning the sale here...

"Yet by putting art ahead of the bottom line, the Museum of Contemporary Art has nearly killed itself"

Posted on December 05, 2008
The New York Times has a front page story today on the LA MOCA mess.

"The art collection represents significant value to the debtors' estates"

Posted on December 04, 2008
The bankruptcy court gave approval yesterday for Lehman Brothers to sell its $8 million art collection. Story here.

Fair Enough

Posted on December 04, 2008
The Center for Social Media has put together a "Code of Best Practices in Fair Use" that aims to "clarif[y] the fair use of copyrighted materials for teaching and learning, putting an end to copyright confusion for educators."Temple's David Post:"There's something of a 'political' slant to this, it should be noted...

"The possibility of buying a forgery is one of the enduring consequences of the structure of the art and antiquities trade"

Posted on December 04, 2008
Derek Fincham notes that Sotheby?s withdrew "an important 13th century belt buckle" from an Old Masters auction last night after questions were raised about its authenticity. Asks Derek: "Though this object was discovered before its sale, how many are not?"

More on the Phillips Deal

Posted on December 02, 2008
Judd Tully reports that "although the sums involved in the private transaction were not released, a source familiar with the deal says that Mercury paid approximately $60 million for its majority share, of which 'around 50 percent' was to cover Phillips?s debt...

"It's quite beautiful even though it isn't the same"

Posted on December 02, 2008
Back in 2006, in a post about two works by American artists that were destroyed when they fell off the wall at the Pompidou Center, I noted that "in a nice additional touch, the museum has extended an invitation to the artists to remake the works at the museum?s expense...

"Copia has struggled to find its footing since opening in November 2001"

Posted on December 01, 2008
Copia, "the ambitious food, wine and art museum in Napa, Calif.," has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

"This interest may be routine, but it's rarely good news to get a letter from an attorney general"

Posted on December 01, 2008
The Los Angeles Times editorial board weighs in on the troubles at MOCA.

Members Only

Posted on December 01, 2008
Josh Baer says "it seems that the reporter at Law.com didn't get it quite right about Judge Cahn's ruling as to whether Gerard Basquiat came to Christies; as the Basquiat Authentication Committee or from the estate. Maybe Judge Cahn isn't so clear either...

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