The proposed agreement requires regulatory approval and is anticipated to take effect by mid 2012 subject to regulatory approval.
The Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) provides rights management publishers, writers and artists, and reported revenue collected on behalf of rights holders for the year ended 30 June 2011 of $123 million, of which $120 million was paid to rights holders.
Viscopy, a much smaller body, was established specifically to provide rights management services to visual artists and collects fees for works reproduced in auction and gallery catalogues, books, magazines and other media forms.
Viscopy revenue for the year ended June 30, 2011 was $3.2 million of which it distributed $2.3 million to artists.
In April 2010 CAL the Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett announced that CAL was the successful tenderer to act as the collecting society to implement and administer the resale royalty scheme for visual artists.
As reported on this site at the time, industry gossip suggested there were only two tenderers for the position of collecting society, CAL and Viscopy, the latter being the pre-announcement favourite, due to its existing function in the visual arts sector of collecting royalties on behalf of artists on reproductions of their work, principally in auction catalogues.
At the time of the announcement a Viscopy media release said that "Viscopy [was] surprised and disappointed by the federal government’s decision."
If the agreement is approved, Viscopy will continue as a separate organisation and Viscopy members will continue to be served by the Viscopy board.
But CAL will provide membership, licensing and other administrative services to Viscopy’s members and licensees.
CAL says that the proposed agreement will create a ‘one-stop-shop’ for any organisation wanting licence approval to use domestic or internationally created text and artistic content.
The agreement will be reviewed by both organisations after three years.
