CAMDO JOIN COALITION

Copyright laws stifle artists’ creativity
Art gallery directors and artists demand consultation on proposed changes

Ottawa — Canada’s artists and arts professionals are lobbying for input into copyright legislation that impacts the creation and dissemination of contemporary art. Artists and arts professionals express frustration with the restrictions on creativity that the current laws impose.

“Our current copyright legislation stifles the creativity of artists. It mires them in legal tangles and crippling lawsuits. Artists and arts professionals must have their say in proposed changes to copyright legislation,” says Marilyn Smith, President of the Canadian Art Museum Directors’ Organization (CAMDO).

CAMDO, a professional association of art gallery and art museum directors, is calling on the government to consult artists and arts professionals on any copyright legislation that the government might propose.

“Appropriated images and objects lie at the very heart of much contemporary art practice. It is the role of art to critique and comment on the world around us. Art opens up new ways of seeing, new knowledge,” Smith says.

There have already been several attempted motions put forward in the past weeks to change existing laws. If passed, such motions could result in appropriation becoming illegal.

An initiative led by Appropriation Art—a coalition of arts professionals who incorporate appropriated images and objects in their art work—calls on the Canadian government to adopt balanced copyright laws that respect the reality of contemporary practice. The Coalition argues that Canada’s current copyright laws “put at particular risk those artworks using appropriation, such as conceptual art, art video & film, sound art and collage.”

Art museum and art gallery directors across Canada support the initiatives of Appropriation Art to ground Canadian copyright laws on the three main principles of fair access to copyrighted materials, enabling Certainty of Access for artists, and enabling creative access within the Anti-Circumvention Laws (Anti-circumvention laws privilege technical measures such as digital locks on files that would otherwise be open to commentary).

Appropriation Art’s open letter on June 6 to the Ministers of Canadian Heritage and Industry stated, “Artworks using Appropriation have a long and well documented place in the History of Art. These works are collected and exhibited in major cultural institutions across Canada and throughout the world. We cannot open a book on Modern and Contemporary Art without being presented with some form of Appropriation.”