Whoopee! At last there is somewhere on the internet that provides a vital, long-overdue service and resource for artists, designers and photographers like me to register my originals.
The UK based Fine Art Trade Guild has just launched the The Original Art Register (OAR)??for Guild members, and non-members. This is a whole new service for the fine art industry.
The service is a central register of original images with details of the copyright holder, and a date, plus other information.
OAR will enable any artist, designer, photographer, publisher, art gallery, or fine art printer to register and provide proof of origination that can deter and prevent copying or copyright theft of their creation. It also has the advantage of protecting their intellectual property and their copyrighted images, for ever.
And as a big bonus the central library archive of images and their details will be available as a free, secure searchable source for collectors, dealers, and licensing business queries.
This register needed to be established and maintained by a reputable, international, not-for-profit organization.
The Fine Art Trade Guild, established in 1847, fulfills this condition perfectly.
This ??scheme??is so good because.
- It is affordable
- It is secure.
- It is comprehensive.
- It is global.
- It is simple.
The scheme also.
- Archives image.
- Records image properties.
- Establishes copyright details.
- Provides a free, secure, public, searchable, database of an artists work worldwide.
This is why this it???s such a great asset.
Artists, designers, and photographers can create an image. Then for a small affordable registration fee they can lodge the record of that image into a secure globally available data-base. The record will establish crucial details about the image so that full-value and reward will be ensured and obtained by the creator.
How it works for artists, photographers, etc:
- You first log in the Guild website and apply to become a registrant. Easy and free!
- Prospective registrants do not have to be Guild members to register and add images.
- Currently it costs just three pounds to register and protect each image.
- Thereafter there is an annual maintenance fee and admin charge of a few pennies per image.
- Guild Members get access to the recording process at a reduced rate, with a 33% discount, at ??2 per image.
- For Guild Members, if required, a link from the registered image can go direct to the artists or dealers own website.
- The online system records the image, and copyright owner.
- The image is assigned a unique OAR ID number.
- The register shows artist, title, medium, substrate, date, and dimensions of the original image.
- The registrant can show details of limited editions or open editions that have been made from the image.
- Plus details if the image is used to create any other products directly from the artist.
- It also shows if the image has been licensed for prints, calendars, fabrics, greetings cards, etc.
- The registrant can download the unique Certificate of Registration and point-of-sale card for each image.
- Anyone can discover and contact the image creator and owner.
- The OAR register is available for everybody to freely examine.
- The OAR register can be searched using a variety of categories like landscape, animal, floral, people, seascape, etc.
- The register can also be searched for any image or participating artist or photographer by name, image title or medium
- The register is available 24/7 online from the Guild website.
From now on.
An artists, designer or photographer who creates an image can now record that image and register the date and other details proving they are the legitimate copyright holder of that image.
This will enable them to freely promote their work without the worry that it could be copied or stolen without any means of redress.
In the event of a copyright challenge the certificate of registration and proof of a registered date would be an invaluable asset for the artists, designer or photographer to help prove ownership.
They can also use the archive of registered and searchable images to promote themselves to galleries, dealers, publishers, licensors, investors, and collectors.
The register can be used to log archived images and not just new images.
An Exciting Future.
It is becoming much more obvious just how significant this register can be in the future.
If an artist or photographer creates a new artwork that they are happy with they would be very remiss not to register that image straight away for such a small sum. This quick and simple process will ensure that that image is forever safe. They will also have a visual record of the date and other details and interested parties will be able to keep abreast of new work as it???s produced.