Turner Judy: Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Turner Judy: Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I stand to speak to the first reading of the Copyright (Artists’ Resale Right) Amendment Bill which amends the Copyright Act of 1994 and inserts a new provision to establish a resale right for visual artists in New Zealand. 
This resale right entitles visual artists to receive a royalty payment each time an original artistic work is resold on the secondary market. The provision does not apply to the first sale or transfer of an artist’s work and does not apply to sales between private individuals. The scope of this bill is limited to original works of visual art—paintings photographs sculptures and some jewellery. It expressly excludes works of architecture original manuscripts of writers and composers and artefacts like that. The scheme will be extended to all auction houses galleries dealers and any other intermediary or professional who is involved in the business of dealing in works of art. Interestingly enough auction sites such as TradeMe and eBay are excluded from the provisions of this bill. 
United Future is opposing this bill because although similar schemes or variants of it exist in other countries—like France and as has been mentioned the UK—the application of those schemes is broader than what is proposed for this New Zealand scheme. Those countries also have long-established art markets and a greater population of art benefactors and investors whereas the New Zealand market—particularly of works by New Zealand artists—is a comparatively fledgling market. It is only in recent times that emerging notable and collectable New Zealand artworks have attracted premium prices. United Future believes that as this emerging market develops it could come under threat by this proposed scheme. 
The bill has a tendency to be elitist. By restricting the scheme to visual artworks it also starts to define in economic terms what art is. 
A key argument for a royalty fee is to help artists and in particular emerging artists to get early recognition of their creative outputs and to enable them to support themselves as full-time professionals. The claim is often made that a struggling artist out of necessity often sells work at a very low price and thereafter derives no benefit from capital gain should the artist’s work subsequently appreciate in value. 
United Future asks when it is the State’s role to legislate in order to guarantee in virtual perpetuity an assured share of the potential capital gain of any goods or any service. If the State is concerned about ensuring the financial viability of professional artists then it would be better to specifically target funding at assisting such groups. United Future looked very closely at what has happened in places like Ireland where there has been a real flourishing of the arts due to some really good Government initiatives—but not this kind of control and tracking. 
One of the concerns I have had as I have been thinking about the ongoing implications of this bill is around issues of privacy. I can imagine an artist selling his or her piece of art then having an extremely close interest in where it is who is looking after it and how it is being displayed. A lot of people who purchase art for their private collection do so for their own personal enjoyment; it is not necessarily an investment. I am not sure how appreciative they would be if over the years they are constantly contacted and asked whether they still own the art where it is and whether they are looking after it properly because the artist has an ongoing sense of investment in the ongoing care and— 
Sandra Goudie 
: What about the person who burns it? 
JUDY TURNER 
: Exactly. 
Another issue is the risk that a buyer takes particularly an art investor. Very often people are in the market with an eye to up-and-coming developing artists and are prepared to take a risk on someone who looks like he or she has some potential but they do not have any sense of its future value. People I know who spend considerable amounts of money on art say that nine times out of 10 they go on their gut instinct and their own preference for a piece of work; they buy it because it is something they would like to hang in their house knowing full well that if it never appreciates much in value they will still enjoy owning it because they selected it according to their personal taste. So I am concerned about the privacy issue. 
I am concerned that we are looking at this mechanism when we could be doing a range of other things to better support visual artists in New Zealand. We also are getting into the whole issue of redefining what ownership is and although I understand that artists often feel very personally invested in their artwork the decision to sell it is one that they make at a commercial level. My own mother is an artist and she often invests so much in something that she has painted that she will not put it on the market and will not put it in any display where it is required to be available for purchase because she does not want it to be sold. Artists make those calls all the time about their pieces. In other things that they do commercial outcomes are very much the motive for their painting sculpting or producing the piece in the first place. 
United Future would love to see greater support for artists. We think New Zealand could do better in that regard; we just do not believe that this mechanism is the best way forward. I agree with the first speaker from the National Party who said we need to have a very thorough look at the whole issue of copyright in New Zealand and the way that we deal with the whole arts community—not just visual arts but music and everything else—to see whether we could do a lot better by it. United Future would prefer to support that type of robust investigation and legislation not this bill which feels a little bit piecemeal at this stage.