California Lawyers for the Arts (CLA) was  awarded a grant from the new Art for Justice Fund to support a series of public policy convenings on arts and justice issues in six states during 2018. The goal of the Fund is to reduce mass incarceration by 20% in selected states over the next five years.  

CLA is collaborating with arts and justice reform leaders to produce one-day Art for Justice Forums, which will include videotaped symposia, facilitated networking dialogues and art exhibitions in Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Michigan, New York and California. These states were selected because they have large numbers of incarcerated persons or high per capita rates of incarceration according to statistics provided by the federal Department of Justice.  For more information, please send inquiries to aic@calawyersforthearts.org
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CLA Executive Director Alma Robinson described the goal of these forums: "We will facilitate dialogues between arts leaders, justice reform advocates, corrections departments and legislators that will result in an enhanced role for the arts in increasing measurable rehabilitation outcomes for incarcerated persons while raising awareness of their humanity and supporting the reentry of returning citizens." In addition, she said, "the process of collaborating to organize these forums in different states will provide opportunities for arts organizations to work with each other and to align with organizations committed to justice reform that will result in heightened awareness of the value of the arts for community and economic development." 

CLA was awarded one of 30 grants from the new Art for Justice Fund to facilitate six Art for Justice Forums in  Michigan, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, California and New York during 2018. These one-day forums are designed to engage the arts in justice reform efforts and increase support for arts in corrections and re-entry programs.  A total of 200 persons, including elected legislators, artists, returned citizens, educators, arts and justice reform organizations, and others participated in our first two forums at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on April 3 and at the Houston Museum of African American Culture on July 14. A short video that recaps the Michigan Art for Justice Forum is linked HERE.  Additional project funding has been contributed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Quentin Hancock Fund as well as the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Georgia Council on the Arts (Register for the Georgia event HERE).

​CLA's Arts in Corrections Initiative, which was started in 2011 in collaboration with the William James Association, resulted in the successful restoration of state funding for arts programs in California prisons starting with a $2.5 million pilot project for two years in 2014.  An $8 million/year contract from the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to the California Arts Council now provides arts programs in all 35 state prisons.

CA Resale Royalties Act Preempted by Copyright Act

On July 6, 2018, a panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that California’s Resale Royalties Act only applies to art sales conducted prior to 1978.

​See this article about the decision from The New York Times: California Tried to Give Artists a Cut. But the Judges Said No

See below a synopsis of the opinion. BYBEE, Circuit Judge:

The California Resale Royalties Act ("CRRA") grants artists an unwaivable right to 5% of the proceeds on any resale of their artwork under specified circumstances. To that end, the CRRA requires the seller of the artwork or the seller's agent to withhold 5% of the resale price and pay it to the artist or, if the artist cannot be found, to the California Arts Council. If the seller or the seller's agent fails to pay the 5% resale royalty, the artist may bring an action for damages.

Plaintiffs are artists and their successors in interest seeking resale royalties under the CRRA from the statute's effective date of January 1, 1977, to the present. The issue in this case is whether plaintiffs' claims are preempted by federal copyright law. The district court held that they are, as a matter of both express and conflict preemption.

We affirm in part and reverse in part. Plaintiffs' CRRA claims covered by the 1976 Copyright Act—i.e., those concerning sales postdating the 1976 Act's effective date of January 1, 1978—are expressly preempted by 17 U.S.C. § 301(a). We therefore affirm dismissal of those claims.

The 1909 Copyright Act, however, has no express preemption provision. As such, plaintiffs' CRRA claims covered only by the 1909 Act—i.e., those concerning sales that occurred between the CRRA's effective date of January 1, 1977, and the 1976 Act's effective date of January 1, 1978—cannot be expressly preempted. Nor are they preempted by conflict preemption. See Morseburg v. Balyon, 621 F.2d 972, 977-78 (9th Cir. 1980). Accordingly, we reverse dismissal of those claims and remand them to the district court for further proceedings.

National Resale Royalties for Visual Artists?

In a law review article published in the Cybaris Intellectual Property Law Review, CLA Executive Director Alma Robinson makes the case for federal legislation, which would allow US artists to receive resale royalties in more than 70 countries around the world.