How to sell art work legally

[j.puckette]

I'm an artist and I have several paintings that I was thinking about selling (personal, e-bay, whatever). Should I get the painting copywritten or have my name copy written. How should I go about this the safe way? Or does it not even matter?

[Buenchico]

You automatically possess copyright in any work you create, irrespective of that work be a painting, a novel, a photograph or whatever. (The only exception is when the work is created in the course of your employment, when the employer will become the copyright owner).

There is no official system for registering copyright:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy.htm

You can't copyright your own name, although you could register your signature as a trade mark. That's almost certainly completely pointless for you, but here's the information anyway:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm.htm

Unless you are, or become, really famous as an artist, people who buy your work will do so because they like it, rather than because it bears your signature. Any artist who is skilled enough to 'fake' your work won't bother doing so, because he could make just as much money by selling his own original works.

If you later become famous, anyone wanting to pay vast amounts of money for your latest works will deal directly with you (or your agent), which will ensure that they don't get fakes (and you get your money). You'll have no (financial) interest in whether the works sold through auction rooms, claiming to be from your early output, are genuine or not, since you won't be entitled to anything from those sales anyway. (e.g. if you sell a picture on eBay for a tenner, you can't complain if it later sells at Sotheby's for ten million pounds.).

Chris

[fredpuli47]

You may complain if your work is sold , or given away by you, as a first 'sale' and it's later sold for a lot of money!That's because of 'The artist's resale rights regulations" of 2006 [S.I. 2006 No 246 ]. These set out and implement a EU directive, now in our law, for 'droit de suite', resale rights. The artist is entitled to a percentage of the price on resales.There's a sliding scale, set in slices, from 4 per cent at the lowest prices (up to 50,000 euros) up to 4 per cent on the slice from 500,000 euros.There is a ceiling limit of 12,500 euros payable.There was a lot of debate about this law.It was proposed that there be a lower limit of value, below which no such fee was payable on a resale (1,000 euros was suggested).That may be the case now, but there's nothing I can see in the Statutory Instrument (the Regulations). which says so. The Schedule to the Regulations giving the rates starts with "0 to 50,000 euros" , which suggests that there is none.

[fredpuli47]

Typo!That should read " to 0.25 per cent on the slice from 500,000 euros" not "4 per cent. on the slice from 500,000 euros"!