Tag Archives: institute of art and law

Progress on the Washington Principles: a glass half full after 20 years?

Posted on: December 5, 2018 by Emily Gould

The adoption of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art by 44 nations in 1998 marked a deeply significant moment in the development of cultural policy in the 20th and 21st centuries. Whilst the extent of looting perpetrated by the Nazis during the 1933-45 period was fairly well understood at that stage, few would have […]

Planning for the unthinkable: Protecting cultural assets in extremis

Posted on: December 3, 2018 by Emily Gould

It barely seems possible that we are fast approaching the first anniversary of the UK’s ratification of the Hague Convention 1954. 12th December 2017 marked the entry into force of the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017, which saw the UK, finally, making a formal commitment to adhere to the Convention’s obligations for the protection […]

European Registrars Conference 2018

Posted on: November 20, 2018 by Emily Gould

We were delighted to take part in the European Registrars Conference in London this week. This biennial event is highly impressive in its scope and reach, bringing together registrars from across the globe to discuss myriad issues from insurance to art loans to the practicalities of transportation and storage. In a fascinating opening discussion about […]

Hereford art competition

Posted on: November 18, 2018 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

IAL was pleased to sponsor one of the prizes for the recent Hereford art competition called Hereford my Passion, put on by local Hereford law firm Harrison Clark Rickerbys. There were two categories for artists: one for contestants under 15 years of age and the other for contestants over 15 years of age. We sponsored […]

Copyright in AI works – what can we learn from our forebears?

Posted on: November 14, 2018 by Emily Gould

  Readers of this blog will have seen the post last week about Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, a piece of computer generated art created by the Obvious Collective through Artificial Intelligence, which recently sold at auction for USD 432,500. Amongst the challenges posed by AI technology for copyright law, is the question of how […]

Art and Copyright: what can we learn from the past?

Posted on: October 29, 2018 by Emily Gould

Who does the modern law of copyright seek to protect? We are familiar today with the claim that artistic copyright protects artists and, perhaps, users of copyright works. Roll back 150 years, to the nineteenth century, and artistic copyright was also understood in a number of other ways, which are long forgotten today. For instance, […]

UK Museums Bid to Save Titanic Artefacts

Posted on: September 26, 2018 by Holly Woodhouse

Hedge funds are competing with a consortium of British museums to purchase 5,500 artefacts salvaged from the Titanic, which sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912 with the loss of 1,500 lives. The current owner of the artefacts, Premier Exhibitions, is selling them after filing for bankruptcy in the United States in 2016.  The […]

Rare Stik sculpture to be auctioned for charity tackling homelessness

Posted on: September 19, 2018 by Emily Gould

We’re delighted to share with you news that a rare sculpture by IAL friend and internationally renowned street artist Stik will be auctioned tomorrow, 20th September, by Christies, London, in aid of the charity Cardboard Citizens. Stik originally created the piece, entitled ‘Up on the Roof’, for a 2009 exhibition, and from 2010 it dwelt […]

Battles loom on the ivory front

Posted on: May 17, 2018 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes

The controversy surrounding ivory and the restrictions imposed on its trade is certainly continuing to smoulder. As we reported a few weeks ago, the results of the UK Government’s consultation, and its proposals for a wide-ranging ban on ivory trade met with a mixed response. To add fuel to the fire, a dispute that has […]

The V&A’s ReACH programme

Posted on: February 28, 2018 by Alexander Herman

We were fortunate enough to be able to take the students from the LLM programme in Art, Business and Law to the V&A to hear the museum’s in-house solicitor, Anthony Misquitta, speak about the various legal issues faced by the institution on a daily basis. This covered things like copyright and digitisation, trade mark issues […]