Sponsors (3)
The bill creates a new resale royalty and governance framework that provides ongoing income and stronger oversight for visual artists while imposing added costs, administrative burdens, legal exposure, and some exclusions for market participants and certain foreign creators.
Visual artists (and their heirs) gain a statutory 5% resale royalty on commercial resales of their works priced $5,000 or more (capped at $50,000), creating a new, ongoing income stream from secondary market sales.
The bill eliminates strict Section 401 notice formalities for visual art, reducing paperwork and lowering the risk that creators inadvertently forfeit rights, which makes compliance easier for artists, owners, and galleries.
Collecting societies must remit royalties at least quarterly and hold unclaimed funds in escrow, increasing the predictability and timeliness of payments to artists.
Galleries, dealers, and auction houses must pay resale royalties within 90 days, increasing transaction costs, administrative burden, and operational complexity for art-market professionals.
Buyers and collectors may face higher effective purchase costs (or sellers may receive lower net prices) if marketplaces pass resale royalty costs onto purchasers or compress seller offers.
The statute’s treble damages and exclusive remedies raise litigation exposure for market participants and collecting societies, increasing legal risk and likely insurance and compliance costs.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal resale royalty for visual art sales ≥ $5,000 (5% up to an inflation‑indexed $50,000 cap), sets collecting-society rules, excludes visual art from copyright notice rules.
Introduced June 17, 2025 by Jerrold Lewis Nadler · Last progress June 17, 2025
Creates a federal resale royalty for visual artists on commercial resales of works of visual art when the resale price is $5,000 or more. The royalty is the lesser of 5% of the sale price or a $50,000 cap (indexed for inflation); art market professionals must remit royalties to artist collecting societies within 90 days. The bill also removes works of visual art from the federal copyright notice provisions, requires a five‑year implementation study by the Register of Copyrights, and takes effect one year after enactment.