The Crypto Art World should set as a standard across all platforms for the payment of Resale Royalties to artists!
I propose an automatic 10% resale royalty to go to the creator irrespective of where it’s minted or where it’s resold.
If a platform allows any further adjustment up, they can.
..and any platform that doesn’t pay artist resale royalties should be shunned out of existence by both artists and collectors.
Smart contracts, blockchain and complete transparency are fucking useless unless it also favours the artists.
Jean-Francois Millet, The Angelus, 1857-1859, oil on canvas, Musee d’Orsay
In France Droit de suite (right to follow), is a right granted to artists or their heirs to receive a fee on the resale of their works of art. Droit de suite was first created in 1859 following the sale of The Angelus where the owner of the painting made a huge profit from the sale, whereas the family of the artist lived in poverty.
The painting depicts two peasants bowing in a field over a basket of potatoes to say a prayer, the Angelus, to mark the end of a day’s work.
Millet was commissioned by an art collector who never came to collect it.
The Crypto Art Community, artists and collectors should get behind the idea of resale royalties across all platforms.
No one loses if there’s a mandatory 10% Resale Royalty imposed, in fact it is good for Crypto Art as a whole.
The platforms do not lose, firstly it’s not taken out of their cut.
The collectors pay the advertised price, so it doesn’t affect them.
The Resellers & Flippers lose 10%. However what sort of ass do you have to be that 10% of a Beeple you paid $1 for and are trying to sell it for $1,000 the next day is exorbitant?
I know what you’re thinking, “why does Beeple need a further $100 cause he’s rich now?”
We do not know the future, Beeple could be hit by a bus tomorrow and completely mangled and unable to make any art again. Meanwhile as the moola dwindles down those regular $100 amounts will come in handy.
Beeple
Meanwhile, collectors will be selling Beeple’s art for many decades to come and in the process enriching themselves. Poor Beeple wont see a cent.
If you think Beeple is a genius level artist and the prices his art commands is worth every dollar, then surely he deserves a small tip of appreciation every time his great art is worthy of being traded and for collectors to take an easy profit.
How could you begrudge the struggling Crypto Artist who sold a NFT for $30 when it is later resold for $80 their paltry $8 Royalty?
Even if a resale royalty helps a little to slow down the flipping of NFTs, that’s a good thing, after all it’s supposed to be about the art, not the quick profit.
The Crypto Art world already has the lowest reselling commissions compared to the traditional art world. Just check out the auction fees.
All this talk of Smart Contracts, the Blockchain & Transparency that is enabled and a natural part of Crypto Art is utter bullshit if this is “too difficult”.
The Brains Trust at GitHub would take all of 15 minutes and a couple of Redbulls to work out a standard code thingy to make this happen across all platforms.
In fact back in August “VexyCats” opened a discussion on the topic ; Discussion for ERC-721 Royalties EIP. #2907.
“ERC721s have a ton of creators and a few marketplaces, but no accepted means for transferring royalties from items being sold multiple times on secondary sales. This EIP is proposing a standard method that can be implemented by all marketplaces easily.”
Discussion for ERC-721 Royalties
My limited understanding about the complexity of the issue is that it should be no problem for a couple of “code monkeys” to solve this on a short banana break.
Everyone has their own story of how they went down the rabbit hole into Crypto Art. Resale royalties combined with blockchain technology was for me that starting point. Discovering a company 3 years ago that wanted to put all the physical art in the world on the Blockchain so as to make authenticity, provenance, transparency & resale royalties indisputable. They also had their own art Ai identification technology, tokens & rewards system in place. The plug was pulled just as they were to launch a couple of years ago and millions of dollars went down the drain. They were ahead of their time, sadly gone as they would’ve set the standard for all who follow to include resale royalties.
Europe has a resale royalty system, so does Australia and I’ve been the beneficiary of thousands of $. In OZ the resale royalties are set at 5% and are collected for 70 years after the artist’s death, which I’ve assigned in my will & is a great leverage I occasionally use over my nephew.
That’s another concept to consider in the fast paced Crypto world, Estate planning for Crypto Artists and how long are the royalties paid to the family of artists?
Copyright Agency Resale Royalty
In the USA, the final nail in the coffin was in 2012 when the California Resale Royalty Act (civil code section 986) was struck down ending 35 years of artists being entitled to a royalty upon the resale of their works of art under certain circumstances.
A 10% Resale Royalty scheme already exists for most of crypto art, what also exists are some platforms either unable or not interested in honouring smart contracts regarding resales they didn’t create. This will become a loophole to be exploited
Here’s where we are today in Crypto Art
I believe Coldie was well within his rights to request the resale royalty he specifically assigned on future sales & I think “satman.eth” attitude is a…
move for calling Coldie a spoilt artist. After flipping for a quick profit a couple of NFTs created by an early adopter of Crypto Art, profiting from the artist’s labour to then insult him..
Wonder why flippers are universally hated within the art community?
Read… NFT FLIPPERS, can't live with them, can't shoot them.
A large group of Early Adopter Crypto Artists, amongst them some of the most respected names such as, Coldie, Matt Kane, Sparrow and a long list of others…. drafted a letter, let’s call it a declaration sent to all platforms in the crypto space to adopt a 10% Resale Royalty. A Resale Royalty intended to cross all platform borders for the benefit of all Crypto Artists today and for those to come.
As of writing, last days of the year, “satman.eth” has yet to pay Coldie the .6 ETH requested in September.
IMHO…
The Crypto Art community is in a unique position to lead the Art World and to attract more real world artist into it. For centuries artists have been fucked over by the system, ripped off by galleries, art dealers, collectors due to the huge amounts of money that can be made.
Crypto Art is unique in the art world due to its inherent qualities of proof of authenticity, proof of provenance, the instant payments to artists, smart contracts that can instantly find the creator of the artwork and pay them a small royalty.
The Crypto Art community can lead the art world into the future where the centuries of opacity and secrecy is cleared and the artists, collectors and platforms can all see the transactions with clarity.
The Crypto Art community can easily set up a standard resale royalty to be implemented and paid across all platforms today and in the future.
It’s not enough to pronounce the love of crypto art & crypto artists and then game the system to avoid a small gratuity to the artist who otherwise will never see a cent of future profits.
The ugly and rapacious nature that dealing in art creates should be tapered with a small nod to the artist, after all they created for all time ahead the very thing is passed forward.
The artists who first stood up for this resale royalty, the early adopters, who like “pioneers” had the foresight to fight for a royalty scheme for the benefit of all crypto artist who followed. It was not intended to be something to be gamed by switching platforms, quoting a technicality and garnering a little more from a quick flip.
PS, I LOVE Irony, is this going to be NFT platform?
Yeah, I LOVE ART too….
Love Art , 2008 (painted by me) , acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia.