Resale Royalties

One of the major talking points in the art world of late has been resale royalties. For those of you who are not familiar with the art market and royalties for artists, in most countries artists only get paid when an artwork is sold for the first time on the primary market. For many years there has been a call for artists to receive some sort of financial remuneration for each subsequent sale of their artwork after the artwork leaves the hands of the artist. After all, other people are making money off the artists work so why shouldn't the artist get a share.

There has of course been opposition to resale royalties by many people in the art market because it would mean that they would have higher costs and therefore would either have to pass the costs onto the vendors or take a cut in profits. Either way, the art market has generally been against the idea. I suppose one needs to look at the big picture and take into account that artists need money to live and produce art so by funding the arts through resale royalties, more artists are likely to be able to work as artists full time and support themselves. Better funding also means that artists will be able to spend more time and effort on their work thus producing more work and better quality work boosting the art market as a whole.

There are of course limits and regulations that need to be put in place for resale royalties in order for the art market to not be too affected. The UK has successfully implemented resale royalties without a negative affect to the art market so it should only be a matter of time before other countries follow suit.