Authors' rights in culture, from joy to burden?

Seminar: Authors' rights in culture, from joy to burden?
June 25, 2008
Auditorium M HKA, Antwerp

What role do authors' rights play in the realisation of media art? What are the risks for museums, buying art that incorporates found footage? Are there any alternative models for the traditional disclosure of audiovisual heritage? Should all art be licensed using Creative Commons?

Artists increasingly encounter restrictions of intellectual property rights in the process of production and distribution of their media art. Also institutions who are responsible for the management of this art form are confronted with a strict legislation on authors' rights. Can a heritage institution publish digitised works online just like that? The Royal Belgian Film Archive may, for the purpose of preservation, change artworks from one carrier to another or change their format, but other institutions need permission - often difficult to obtain - in order to do this. It is an issue that does not stop at national borders. Also on an international level, projects have been started to bring art and heritage to the citizens over the internet.

This seminar aimed to make an inventory of problems, and possibly give an incentive to the review of existing practices and the clarification of the current legislation. Some jurists situated the problematic context and suggested possible solutions or workarounds. A number of Flemish artists afterwards illustrated in short presentations how they deal with authors' rights in their daily practice, and whether they perceive it as a joy or as a burden. What are their needs and considerations, according to which principles can and may their work be distributed?

All video lectures below are in Dutch.

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Frederik Leen is head of the department of modern art of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Presentation | Frederik Leen illustrated problems in the creation of a collection and the presentation of film and video works in which material has been used that is not free of copyright. The purchase of three artworks by the museum had been held back in the past because there were intellectual property rights related problems with found footage that was part of the works.

Evi Werkers and Robin Kerremans are both connected to the ICRI, Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT of the Catholic University of Leuven. Presentation | Evi Werkers gave an overview of the current legislation on authors' rights. Robin Kerremans afterwards situated two problematic exceptions: the archival exception and orphan works.

Joris Deene is a lawyer at the tribunal of Ghent (Storme, Leroy, Van Parys) and assistant at the Ghent University, in the Centre Jurist & Informatics. He is preparing a doctoral research on the conflict between intellectual property rights and the distribution of information. Presentation | Joris Deene posed the question whether the current legislation on intellectual property is a facilitator for art distribution, or rather an obstacle. After an introductory historic overview of authors' rights, it appeared that both points of view exist alongside.

Wendy Van Wynsberghe has been an active member of Constantvzw since 1998. Besides her work at Constant, she is an active sound artist under the names Wy and Remork. Presentation | In 2000, Constant organised ‘CopyCult’, with the purpose of highlighting some major questions on art, copyright and copyleft. What has changed over a period of eight years? Wendy Van Wynsberghe illustrated this by presenting a few cases on how to deal with free licenses and open software in artistic practice.

Didier Volckaert is an audiovisual artist and documentary filmmaker. His most recent work is a documentary project on the story ‘Dog of Flanders’. In the documentary ‘Patrasche, a Dog of Flanders - Made in Japan’, Volckaert focuses on the different (imaginary) representations of Flanders, based on this story. Presentation | Material for this film originates from archives and several other sources; consequentially there are problems with the author’s rights. Next to his experiences with ‘A dog of Flanders’, Didier Volckaert spoke about his approach of how he handles users’ rights for his productions, and he introduced a more differentiated approach to authors’ rights than the current one.

Jan Vermassen is head of the Reproductiefonds, nowadays a cultural enterprise by the name Lukasweb. Using the slogan ‘Art in Flanders’, Lukas is a central distribution point that makes digital image files of artworks from Flemish museums available for high quality prints and other demanding applications, with a largely international target audience. Presentation | Jan Vermassen presented his experiences with the distribution of art through an online platform like Lukasweb. What are the threats and opportunities for contemporary artists with regards to their own image management, the construction of an image collection and the distribution of images on an international forum? What is the relation between the functioning of Lukas and authors' rights?

Guy Van Belle works in the field of experimental media art since 1990. His most important virtual organisations were Stellingname (1984-1989), Young Farmers Caim Future (1990-2000), dBonanzah (1998-2002), mXHz.org (2002-?) and Society of Algorithm (2004-?). These organisations investigated different creative forms of the real and the virtual. His work is mainly influenced by “synaesthetic, realtime generated, abstract, algorithmic elements”. Presentation | Guy Van Belle illustrated through some examples how the authors’ right in many cases is interpreted in a way that is not beneficial to the artist. Even in education, the distribution of images is hindered by it.