Why a resale royalty was rejected in Australia

Abstract

In 2004 the Australian Opposition party introduced to Parliament a private member’s bill proposing the amendment of Australian copyright law to include an artist’s resale royalty. In response to the bill the Government released the Proposed Resale Royalty Arrangement Discussion Paper, which successfully provided a tangible foundation for discussions and stimulated the first strong academic debate regarding a resale royalty within Australia. Despite overwhelming support from respondents, in May 2006 the Government announced it would not support the adoption of a resale royalty right and the Resale Royalty Bill 2004 failed to pass through Parliament. The rejection of a resale royalty by the Australian Government illustrates the ongoing difficulty of incorporating civil law notions of creative rights, and moral rights in particular, into common law – particularly as the Australian Government’s approach to policy making is increasingly underpinned by economic rationalism.

Keywords:

• Australia
• droit de suite
• economics
• Government policy
• resale royalty

Notes

1. Data for the report collected from the 2000–01 financial year.

2. 2950 GBP (calculation rate: 1 AUD = 0.404501 GBP as at 15 October 2006. Numbers rounded to nearest fifty. Rate sourced from http://www.xe.com).

3. 1250 GBP.

4. 1800 GBP.

5. 60 GBP.

6. 196,800 GBP.

7. 400 GBP.

8. 93,000 GBP.

9. California is the only state in the United States of America to have any form of resale royalty and it extends to private sales, rendering the royalty virtually impossible to police.

10. 10.1 million GBP.

11. 40.45 million GBP.

12. 2.43 million GBP.

13. 25.47 million GBP.

14. 8.09–10.11 million GBP.

15. 24,300–32,400 GBP.

16. Rover Thomas’s All That Big Rain Coming from Topside sold for AU$ 778,750 (315,000 GBP) at auction in 2001 (Strickland 2005).

17. 14,200 GBP.

18. Based on a resale royalty right extending to all resales (DCITA 2004, p. 34).

19. Based on a resale royalty right with a minimum threshold of AU$ 8000 (3200 GBP) (DCITA 2004, p. 34).

20. 400 GBP.

21. 400 GBP.