Sponsors (3)
Introduced June 17, 2025 by Jerrold Lewis Nadler · Last progress June 17, 2025
The bill creates a new, predictable resale-royalty income stream and enforcement tools for visual artists while simplifying some exhibition rules, but it raises costs and administrative burdens across the art market, limits artists' ability to monetize royalty rights, introduces some succession gaps, and delays full evaluation and fixes.
Visual artists and their heirs/successors receive ongoing resale royalties on secondary-market sales of $5,000+, with quarterly distributions and an upper cap (lesser of 5% or $50,000, inflation-adjusted), creating a predictable income stream tied to market value.
Authors gain stronger enforcement tools to recover unpaid royalties, including clearer dispute procedures and the possibility of treble damages where collecting societies fail to act, improving creators' ability to collect.
Creators, museums, galleries, and other exhibitors face reduced administrative burden because certain §401 notice requirements no longer apply to covered visual works, simplifying display and publication processes.
Art buyers, sellers, collectors, and market participants will face higher transaction costs because resales above $5,000 can carry up to a 5% royalty, increasing effective prices and potentially reducing market liquidity.
Collecting societies' compliance and administrative costs (reporting, quarterly distributions, remittances) are likely to be passed through as fees or higher prices and may create cash-flow and reporting burdens that disproportionately hurt small dealers and intermediaries.
The law prohibits artists from selling or assigning the royalty right, removing an asset they could use to obtain advances, loans, or other financing and limiting artists' access to upfront capital.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal resale royalty for visual-art resales $5,000+ (lesser of 5% or an inflation-adjusted $50,000 cap) payable via designated collecting societies.
Creates a federal resale royalty right for visual artists so that when an art market professional publicly resells a work for $5,000 or more, a percentage of the resale price must be paid to the artist (or the artist’s successor) through designated collecting societies. The royalty equals the lesser of 5% of the resale price or a $50,000 cap that is adjusted annually for inflation; payments must be remitted within 90 days and distributed to artists at least quarterly. The bill also removes works of visual art from the statutory notice-of-copyright requirements, requires a Register study and report on implementation within five years, and becomes effective one year after enactment.