Copyright Law

We Demand You Not Close the Museum You Are Not Closing

Posted on September 29, 2010
Two new exhibits open at the Rose next week. Of course the Rose is not a real museum because Brandeis once considered selling some of its work and now they are exploring loaning out some of the collection for profit. When you do that, you are no longer a museum...

Linkage

Posted on September 29, 2010
Daniel Grant on what happens to confiscated fakes.The NYT on when it's legal to photograph art.The Art Market Monitor on bad behavior in the art market.

Not So Much

Posted on September 27, 2010
Lee Rosenbaum frets that New York's adoption of UPMIFA encourages "disregard of donor intent," but as the folks at Nixon Peabody point out, "New York's statute is more donor-favorable than perhaps any in the nation, with special notice requirements on court-ordered and other modifications of restrictions, and donor consent to the release or modification of certain restrictions contained in a gift instrument...

Inside Job?

Posted on September 27, 2010
NYT: "Egypt?s minister of the interior told the official MENA news agency that a museum employee was most likely responsible for the theft of a valuable van Gogh painting from a museum in Giza last month."Derek Fincham: "This may explain why there was such a strong reaction to the arrest and a crack down on the museum's own staff and security personnel, or it may be an attempt to find a scapegoat...

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Protect Yourself

Posted on September 27, 2010
New York Times "Wealth Matters" columnist Paul Sullivan had a piece on buying art this weekend. It's mostly common sense stuff (it's "not always the case" that art increases in value), but Aris title insurance makes an appearance. Sullivan says they charge a "one-time premium" ranging "from 1 to 5 percent of the value," then adds:"The reality, though, is that title insurance is still not broadly accepted...

On loopholes

Posted on September 23, 2010
I wanted to address a point Assemblyman Brodsky made to Lee Rosenbaum regarding the expiration of the Board of Regents' "emergency" rules on deaccessioning:"Another loophole, Brodsky asserted to me after he read this post, is that the old regs (under Paragraph 6-ii) did permit the use sale proceeds for operating expenses, if the institution first changed its corporate purpose so as not to include collecting the type of material to be sold...

Rose News

Posted on September 22, 2010
Geoff Edgers reports that "Brandeis University is launching a search for a new director at the Rose Art Museum, the latest step in an effort to move on from last year?s controversy over the campus museum."He also says "Rose boosters" who are suing the university are "not impressed...

"Is there anyone out there who is involved with the nonprofit community that is awake!"

Posted on September 20, 2010
The Planned Giving Blog reports that Gov. Patterson has signed UPMIFA into law in NY. For background, start here.

"The Attorney General would like to correct that apparent miscommunication"

Posted on September 20, 2010
The Tennessee General has filed a Motion to Clarify the Court's latest ruling in the Fisk case. You can read the motion here. The subtext is: "Excuse me, Your Honor, am I crazy or did you just change your mind completely?"As I explained last week, Judge Lyle ruled last month that, since O'Keeffe's intent in making the gift was to make the collection available to the people of Nashville and the South, the interests of Fisk were irrelevant, and she therefore invited the Attorney General to come up with a plan to keep the collection in Nashville...

Can you copyright the West Coast Offense?

Posted on September 20, 2010
Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento: "This is probably the smartest article I have read recently on copyright and creativity."

"However, the act does not appear to forbid building a garage that would block the mural from view"

Posted on September 20, 2010
An endangered mural in Portsmouth.

"Picasso shrugged: 'I often paint fakes'"

Posted on September 20, 2010
A koan about creativity, courtesy of Gretchen Rubin.

More Deaccession Confusion

Posted on September 16, 2010
AAM president Ford Bell is under the mistaken impression that the NY Board of Regents has decided to "permit museums to sell objects in their collections to cover operating costs."As I explained yesterday, that's not true at all. The existing Board of Regents regulations (which will continue to govern after the emergency regulations expire) provide:"In no event shall proceeds derived from the deaccessioning of any property from the collection be used for operating expenses or for any purposes other than the acquisition, preservation, protection or care of collections...

Fiskophrenia

Posted on September 15, 2010
I had a chance to read Judge Lyle's decision rejecting the AG's plan for the Fisk art, and what it comes down to is she seems to have remembered that the gift to Fisk may have been intended to benefit Fisk.Recall that, in her prior decision, she said the Court of Appeals "made no finding of a dual intention by Mrs...

Relax

Posted on September 15, 2010
I think there was a lot of confusion out there today about the news that the New York State Board of Regents is going to let its "emergency" deaccessioning regulations expire. The New York Times headline was "Board of Regents Ending Injunction Against Museums' Art Sales...

They Found the Missing Corot

Posted on September 15, 2010
"Then, on Sunday, the artwork suddenly materialized ? under the arm of a Fifth Avenue doorman, who took it to a police station house on the Upper East Side."

A couple more notes on Fisk and donor intent

Posted on September 14, 2010
Two additional points on the situation at Fisk:1. Keep in mind that when we talk about O'Keeffe's intent here, we're all really just guessing. O'Keeffe did not say -- though she certainly could have -- what she wanted to see happen to the collection in the event Fisk could no longer properly care for it...

Hilarious

Posted on September 14, 2010
The Judge has rejected the Attorney General's plan for the Fisk artworks: "The best the attorney general has been able to do is to propose a short-term solution. A temporary fix, however, is insufficient, the court concludes. The parties have been in court long enough...

"The state of Tennessee and Metropolitan Nashville have decided that the art is more important than Fisk"

Posted on September 13, 2010
"Nashville has a simple choice to make, and that is whether it is better to keep the art in Nashville full time and have Fisk close or keep the art in Nashville half the time and have Fisk survive."

Maybe someone can make "The Art of the Steal Part 2"

Posted on September 13, 2010
Fisk students held a vigil tonight in protest of the Tennessee Attorney General's plan to transfer the Stieglitz collection to the Frist Center (without any compensation flowing to Fisk).Fisk President Hazel O?Leary says:"This proposal was developed without an invitation to or participation by Fisk from the Attorney General, the Frist Center, MDHA, or the Tennessee Arts Commission...

"The ex-con who allegedly lost a $1 million painting in a drunken haze was being sued for $800,000 at the time the artwork went missing"

Posted on September 13, 2010
Latest on the Corot caper, from the NY Post.

British Artists Protest Possible Cut in Arts Funding

Posted on September 10, 2010
The New York Times: "Britain?s coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has proposed a budget that could cut arts spending by as much as 25 percent, as the government seeks to reduce its substantial budget deficit."Relatedly, Michael Rushton: how do we figure out the right level of public funding for the arts?

Linkage

Posted on September 10, 2010
Tattoos as speech.More on regulating the art market. (Earlier post here.)Update on Dreier's art. (Earlier post here.)

"The Collection should return to the Fisk campus when the University is once again financially able to display and maintain the art"

Posted on September 10, 2010
Today was the deadline for the Tennessee Attorney General to come up with a plan to keep the Steiglitz Collection in Nashville, and come up with such a plan he has:"Under Cooper's plan, the collection would be displayed under contract at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts...

Arrest in Corot Case

Posted on September 10, 2010
The New York Times:"The case of a portrait by a 19th-century French painter that supposedly disappeared after a night of drinking by the man who had it took another twist on Thursday."Thomas A. Doyle was arrested and charged with defrauding an investor in the painting by lying about its cost, according to a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan...

"If convicted the suspects could face three years in prison"

Posted on September 08, 2010
The AP: "Eleven culture officials from Egypt's government have been formally charged in last month's theft of a Vincent van Gogh painting from a Cairo museum."

Broke

Posted on September 07, 2010
I mentioned recently William Cohan's piece on regulation and the art market. Felix Salmon thinks the idea of regulating the art market -- through for example the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- is "a dreadful idea." He thinks "the art market is broken," and better not to do anything to disguise that fact...

Rainy day funds

Posted on September 03, 2010
The Seattle Art Museum is seeking court approval to borrow $10 million from its endowment fund. Story here. Judith Dobrzynski is against endowment spending. The museum says it already "has had to reduce staff and curtail hours" and has "very substantial assets that it operates for public benefit, including the Olympic Sculpture Park, which generates no revenue...

"Even if it?s real, who owns that wall, and can I please take a chunk of it away?"

Posted on September 03, 2010
The LRB's Jenny Diski on the difficulties Banksy poses for collectors.

Was it O'Keeffe's intent that the collection be seen be fewer than 7 people a day?

Posted on September 03, 2010
Because, according to the NPR story I linked to yesterday, that's how many visitors it gets.

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