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The bill creates a new, enforceable resale royalty stream to give visual artists ongoing income from secondary-market sales while balancing caps and payment rules — but it raises costs and administrative burdens across the art market, limits some heirs' access, removes a notice mechanism that aids certainty, and delays fixes through a multi‑year review and phased implementation.
Visual artists (and their heirs/successors) gain a statutory resale royalty on secondary-market sales $5,000 and up — paid to collecting societies (distributed at least quarterly) and capped at the lesser of 5% or $50,000 (inflation-adjusted) — giving creators continuing income from rising resale values.
Authors/creators receive more reliable, enforceable payments because collecting societies must distribute royalties at least quarterly and the law creates stronger dispute/enforcement mechanisms (including treble damages where societies fail to sue), improving artists' ability to collect owed royalties.
Owners/creators of visual art and institutions that display art (museums, galleries, nonprofits) face fewer §401 notice requirements for visual works, reducing administrative burden when publishing, transferring, or exhibiting art.
Buyers, sellers, and art-market participants face higher transaction costs because resales of visual art $5,000+ will trigger up to a 5% royalty (subject to the cap), raising effective prices and potentially reducing secondary-market liquidity.
Compliance and administrative burdens (for collecting societies and intermediaries) plus a 90‑day remittance/reporting cycle can increase market overhead and create cash‑flow pressure on small dealers and intermediaries; additionally, the ban on selling/assigning the royalty prevents artists from using future royalties as collateral or monetizing them in advance.
The statute extinguishes resale royalties if no spouse/children/grandchildren survive the author, potentially denying payments to distant heirs or estates and leaving some creator estates uncompensated.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal resale royalty for visual-art commercial resales (≥$5,000): author gets the lesser of 5% or a CPI-indexed $50,000 cap, paid via collecting societies.
Official title: To amend title 17, United States Code, to secure the rights of visual artists to copyright, to provide for resale royalties, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 17, 2025 by Jerrold Lewis Nadler · Last progress June 17, 2025
Creates a federal resale royalty right for visual artworks sold in the commercial market. When an eligible work of visual art is resold by an art market professional for $5,000 or more, the author (or their successor) is entitled to a royalty equal to the lesser of 5% of the resale price or $50,000 (with annual inflation adjustments to the cap); art market professionals must remit royalties to registered collecting societies, which distribute proceeds to artists or heirs. The law excludes works of visual art from the §401 notice requirements, requires a Register of Copyrights study and report within five years, and takes effect one year after enactment.