To catch a thief

pirate

Grumbler in Training
Joined
Mar 14, 2005
Posts
6
Loc
USA
Thomas Arvid caught a gallery selling illegal copies of his work this past week.

Full article:
http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/news_34e3b2d18426d03e0009.html

This link may work better:
http://www.gazetteextra.com/art100105.asp

My question is as a gallery owner is it my responsibility to investigate every single piece of art that I purchase to see if it is an illegal copy? I buy art all the time from people that walk in off the street, some are artist, some are sales reps. I didn't actually see the artist paint the picture I purchased I don't know that the sales rep is not making copies at home without the artist permission.
What do we do to protect us?
 
It's called "due diligence". The law requires you to perform and maintain due diligece pertaining to what you present and sell to the buying public.

This means that if the artist sells to you direct, and you know them... fine.

If you are dealing with a rep, well then it is up to you to make sure that what the rep sells you, is legit. That is why it is so important to find legit reps and artists at the trade shows and maintain those lines of communication with all parties.

If the artist sends you a flyer about a new 500 piece edition that is sell in out fast, and your rep brings you some pieces that are numbered 523/600.... it's "due diligence" to call the artist or publishing house. "To diligently persue the true and accurate information that is due".

Now, in the case of a certain artist.. I'm not sure that even he knows how many copies he has printed... and they keep coming up with new names of "kinds" of prints within the series.

I once saw an amazing incidence, of a very popular artist who didalot, directly from the supplier... all three <strike>copies</strike> prints were numbered the same.

At first we thought of miss-printed stamps and such and thought that these would be very valuable..... then we rethought about it some more, and considered the "edition size" and realized that they probably weren't..
shutup.gif
 
I read the one article and found this quote
"It never ceases to amaze me," said Arvid, a Detroit native born Thomas Arvid Smith. "You finally come up with something that's different, producing your own work, and the next thing you know, others are producing your work for you. It gets frustrating."
Yeah, I bet TK knows how that feels. :rolleyes:
 
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