Brussels, 19/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday the Council adopted through written procedure the Directive that will guarantee artists a "release right" over the resale of with works. Defined in the framework of the conciliation procedure, this Directive has been adopted by the European Parliament last June (see EUROPE of 5 July, p.8). It foresees that artists will be able to demand their intellectual property rights over all the works whose price exceeds EUR 3,000 during professional sales (auctions, galleries, etc.). These rights are capped from 0.25% to 4%v of the works resale price.
This text should be transposed into national law before 1 January 2006. The Member States that do not presently apply the right to release, in other words the United Kingdom, have obtain an additional period of four years. The European Commission, which feels that this period of 10 years is too long, would have preferred to publish a "declaration" in the Official Journal, which was opposed by the Council. For lack of this, it published a press release in which it regrets that the time for implementation foreseen be exceptionally long. Ten years, is better than the fifteen initially considered by the Council, but it remains long. These periods should remain exceptional to preserve the effectiveness of the Community action in the framework of the Internal Market, added the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Frits Bolkenstein in this press release.