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Founded | 1976 |
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Location |
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Services | Art Therapy (previously licensing) |
Members | Over 6,000 |
Key people | Robert Panzer, Executive Director |
Website | Vagarights.com |
VAGA is an artists collective dedicated to improving mental health and fighting cognitive decline through art therapy. The organisation brings together artists, clinicians and academic psychologists to foster research collaboration and the development of new art therapies. Vaga separated from the Artists Rights Society in 2018 and is now a distinct entity with a separate mission focused on mental health.
Founded in 1976, VAGA (Visual Arts and Galleries Association) was the first fine art and photography royalty collecting society in the United States, and continues to be one of the largest. [1] Modeled after ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), VAGA acts as a clearinghouse for licensing reproduction rights to publishers, museums, film production companies, auction houses, galleries, multinational corporations, and other users of art. In addition, VAGA protects its members from infringements, advises on all aspects of intellectual property law, and advocates for artists’ rights. [2] [3] VAGA represents artists worldwide, both directly and through agreements with affiliated organizations in other countries. As a member of CISAC, the international confederation of societies that represent creators, VAGA takes part in establishing the international standards that govern the use of copyrighted works. [4]
VAGA works to improve artists’ rights through consultation with the United States Copyright Office and by lobbying Congress for improved rights legislation. [5]
In 2014 VAGA, along with other rights organizations, initiated the introduction of the American Royalties Too (ART) Act. The bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Jerrold Nadler and in the Senate by Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ed Markey. [6] If enacted, the bill will establish a resale royalty, whereby the creator of a work would receive a percentage of the sale of that work when it is resold at auction. [7]
The United States Copyright Office reviewed the viability of a resale royalty law in the United States in 2012. VAGA submitted public comments in support of such a law and addressed the concerns of critics. [8] VAGA's Executive Director, Robert Panzer, also participated in roundtable discussions hosted by the United States Copyright Office in order to advocate for a resale royalty law. [9] The findings of the Office’s review were determinedly in favor of a resale royalty law in the United States. [10]
In 2018, VAGA officially splintered from the Artists Rights Society, with the latter retaining all of the organisations licensing and copyright claim responsibilities, and the former continuing with all mental health and art therapy projects. Vaga now runs a sizeable program aimed at exploring the link between mental health and the arts. Artists involved in the project have publicly shared their struggles with poor mental health, and some participate in free sessions designed to show the general public how art can help them overcome certain mental health challenges. Home-based art therapy classes are available 100% online.
The Vaga mental health project also includes a number of psychological experts, including psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and care workers; these professionals come together to explore how art can be used as a therapeutic technique in certain cases of mental or neurological illness. Most art therapy sessions take place in and around New York, although a national network of artists and clinical psychologists is being established and should begin offering art therapy sessions by 2023.
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how individuals relate to each other and to their environments.
The copyright law of the European Union is the copyright law applicable within the European Union. Copyright law is largely harmonized in the Union, although country to country differences exist. The body of law was implemented in the EU through a number of directives, which the member states need to enact into their national law. The main copyright directives are the Copyright Term Directive, the Information Society Directive and the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Copyright in the Union is furthermore dependent on international conventions to which the European Union or their member states are part of, such as TRIPS Agreement or the Berne Convention.
The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that registers copyright claims, records information about copyright ownership, provides information to the public, and assists Congress and other parts of the government on a wide range of copyright issues. It maintains online records of copyright registration and recorded documents within the copyright catalog, which is used by copyright title researchers who are attempting to clear a chain of title for copyrighted works.
A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works publicly in locations such as shopping and dining venues. Legal consumer purchase of works, such as buying CDs from a music store, confer private performance rights. PROs usually only collect royalties when use of a work is incidental to an organisation's purpose. Royalties for works essential to an organisation's purpose, such as theaters and radio, are usually negotiated directly with the rights holder. The interest of the organisations varies: many have the sole focus of musical works, while others may also encompass works and authors for audiovisual, drama, literature, or the visual arts.
A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset or a fixed price per unit sold of an item of such, but there are also other modes and metrics of compensation. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments.
Bauer & Cie. v. O'Donnell, 229 U.S. 1 (1913), was a 1913 United States Supreme Court decision involving whether a purchaser of a patented product bearing a price-fixing notice incurs guilt of patent infringement by reselling the product at a price lower than that which the notice commands. A divided Court (5–4) held that it was not.
Bruce A. Lehman served from 1993 to 1998 as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Lehman is noted for being the first openly gay man to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
APRA AMCOS consists of Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), both copyright management organisations or copyright collectives which jointly represent over 100,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers in Australia and New Zealand. The two organisations work together to license public performances and administer performance, communication and reproduction rights on behalf of their members, who are creators of musical works, aiming to ensure fair payments to members and to defend their rights under the Australian Copyright Act (1968).
The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers is an international non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation that aims to protect the rights and promote the interests of creators worldwide. It advocates for strong legal protection of copyright and authors' rights. It is the world's largest international network of authors' societies, also known as Collective Management Organisations (CMOs), copyright / royalty collection societies, collecting societies, or Performing Rights Organisations (PROs).
Droit de suite (French for "right to follow") or Artist's Resale Right (ARR) is a right granted to artists or their heirs, in some jurisdictions, to receive a fee on the resale of their works of art. This should be contrasted with policies such as the American first-sale doctrine, where artists do not have the right to control or profit from subsequent sales.
Directive 2001/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 September 2001 on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art is a European Union directive in the field of copyright law, made under the internal market provisions of the Treaty of Rome. It creates a right under European Union law for artists to receive royalties on their works when they are resold. This right, often known by its French name droit de suite, appears in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and already existed in many, but not all, Member States. As a result, there was a tendency for sellers of works of art to sell them in countries without droit de suite provisions to avoid paying the royalty. This was deemed to be a distortion of the internal market, leading to the Directive.
The Copyright Act of 1976 is a United States copyright law and remains the primary basis of copyright law in the United States, as amended by several later enacted copyright provisions. The Act spells out the basic rights of copyright holders, codified the doctrine of "fair use", and for most new copyrights adopted a unitary term based on the date of the author's death rather than the prior scheme of fixed initial and renewal terms. It became Public Law number 94-553 on October 19, 1976 and went into effect on January 1, 1978.
The California Resale Royalty Act, which went into effect on January 1, 1977, entitles artists to a royalty payment upon the resale of their art if the transaction takes place in California or the seller is based in the state. It was the only law of its kind implemented in the United States. On July 6, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the California Resale Royalties Act was preempted by the Copyright Act of 1976. Now, only works resold from January 1, 1977 to January 1, 1978, when the Copyright Act became effective, are eligible for the royalty payment.
The Design and Artists Copyright Society is a British private limited company. It is a rights management organisation which collects and distributes royalties to visual artists.
The Society of Authors ZAiKS, established 1918, was for many years the sole legal Polish copyright collective, and has remained the dominant one, following the loss of its de facto government-granted monopoly in 1995 as a result of entry into force of the new copyright law of Poland. It is a member of BIEM, CISAC and GESAC. Its headquarters are located in Warsaw at the ″House Under the Kings″, the former seat of the Załuski Library.
SAMRO, the Southern African Music Rights Organisation, is a copyright asset management society. It was established by the South African Copyright Act, and aims to protect the intellectual property of music creators by licensing music users, collecting licence fees and distributing royalties to music creators. SAMRO represents more than 15,000 Southern African music composers, lyricists/authors and music publishers. The organisation administers performing rights.
The Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel, known by the acronym ACUM, is a non-profit copyright collective which engages in collective rights management for authors, poets, lyricists, composers, arrangers, and music publishers in Israel. As a member of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), ACUM is affiliated with more than 100 similar rights organizations around the world, with which it engages in reciprocal royalty collection agreements. It also holds an annual prize ceremony which honors authors and musicians in many categories, including lifetime achievement.
The Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) is a South Korean non-profit copyright collective for musical works, administering public performance and broadcasting rights, and mechanical recording and reproduction rights. Founded in 1964, it is the second collective rights management organization for musical works in Asia, after JASRAC in Japan. It is also one of the largest in Asia, with over 40,000 members. In 2021, it collected ₩289 billion in licensing fees and distributed ₩256 billion in royalties to its members.