The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), ( title VI, ), is a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

law granting certain rights to artists. VARA was the first federal

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

legislation to grant protection to ''

moral rights Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions. The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work ...

''. Under VARA, works of art that meet certain requirements afford their authors additional rights in the works, regardless of any subsequent physical ownership of the work itself, or regardless of who holds the copyright to the work. For instance, a painter may insist on proper attribution of their painting, and in some instances may sue the owner of the physical painting for destroying the painting even if the owner of the painting lawfully owned it. Although federal law had not acknowledged moral rights before this act, some state legislatures and judicial decisions created limited moral-rights protection. The

Berne Convention The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, was an international assembly held in 1886 in the Swiss city of Bern by ten European countries with the goal to agree on a set of leg ...

required the protection of these rights by signatory states, and it was in response that the U.S. Congress passed the VARA.

Exclusive rights under VARA

VARA exclusively grants authors of works that fall under the protection of the Act the following rights *right to claim authorship *right to prevent the use of one's name on any work the author did not create *right to prevent use of one's name on any work that has been distorted, mutilated, or modified in a way that would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation *right to prevent distortion, mutilation, or modification that would prejudice the author's honor or reputation Additionally, authors of works of "recognized stature" may prohibit intentional or grossly negligent destruction of a work. Exceptions to VARA require a waiver from the author in writing. To date, "recognized stature" has managed to elude a precise definition. VARA allows authors to waive their rights, something generally not permitted in France and many European countries whose laws were the originators of the moral rights of artists concept. In most instances, the rights granted under VARA persist for the life of the author (or the last surviving author, for creators of joint works).

Covered works

VARA provides its protection only to

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

drawing Drawing is a form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surface. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayo ...

prints In molecular biology, the PRINTS database is a collection of so-called "fingerprints": it provides both a detailed annotation resource for protein families, and a diagnostic tool for newly determined sequences. A fingerprint is a group of conserved ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

s, still photographic images produced for exhibition only, and existing in single copies or in limited editions of 200 or fewer copies, signed and numbered by the artist. The requirements for protection do not implicate aesthetic taste or value.

Application and effect

VARA's application is limited to visual works that fall within a narrowly defined category. However, for works that do fall within the category of protected works, VARA imposes substantial restrictions on any modification or removal of those works. Purchasers of the works must obtain written waivers from the author if they wish to exercise any of the exclusive rights under VARA. This has particularly been an issue for those that commission public sculptures. Absent a waiver, artists could effectively veto decisions to remove their structures from their benefactor's land. In a 2006 decision involving public sculptures that were removed from the park for which they were created, the

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in case citations, 1st Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maine * District of Massachusetts ...

ruled that VARA does not protect location as a component of site-specific work. VARA covered works can be moved as long as the move does not constitute "destruction, distortion, or mutilation." However, one artist has claimed "The moment that the sculpture is removed, it will be destroyed, because it cannot be what it is anywhere else."

Examples of works

* Tilted Arc, a well-known artwork by

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, Urban area, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material q ...

, was removed from public display prior to the enactment of VARA. *

Kent Twitchell Kent Twitchell (born August 17, 1942, Lansing, Michigan) is an American muralist who is most active in Los Angeles. He is most famous for his larger-than-life mural portraits, often of celebrities and artists. His murals are realism not photoreal ...

Ed Ruscha Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. He is also noted for creating severa ...

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...

was painted over without his approval. Twitchell agreed to the largest settlement ever under VARA for $1.1 million against the U.S. government and 12 defendants. *On February 12, 2018, a federal judge cited VARA in awarding $6.7 million to 21 graffiti artists at the 5 Pointz open-air graffiti museum whose works were destroyed by the developer who owned the property on which the graffiti had been painted. The building owner tore the building down to rebuild condos. *In 2018, Finnish/American artist Christian Narkiewicz-Laine filed the largest VARA lawsuit in U.S. history stemming from the destruction of the artist’s rented space in Galena, Illinois where he alleged over 4,000 works of art were destroyed and mutilated, claiming a value of $11.8 million. During the VARA trial in Rockford, Illinois, the artist's "recognized stature" under the statute was at issue. The defendants argued that he lacked sufficient stature to gain protection, citing his background as a Communist, a member of SDS during the 1970s, his numerous arrests during the Civil Rights Movement, and burning of an American flag during an anti-Vietnam War protest. His art and writings were also attacked for being provocative and “anti-American,” and therefore not of stature. His credibility as a witness was also questioned, based on his prior felony conviction for lying to the FBI during an art fraud investigation. Although the defendants were found liable for trespass, conversion, and negligence, the jury awarded the artist $120,000 for only four undisclosed, unnamed works of art from over 4,000. The federal judge found that the jury's VARA award was properly included within the jury's other damages, thus reducing the amount of the total judgment. In 2019, the case was appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and was affirmed. The artist appealed the VARA case to the U.S. Supreme Court and was declined a hearing.

External links

Text of Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990
* ttps://www.copyright.gov/reports/exsum.html Waiver of Moral Rights in Visual Artworks U.S. Copyright Office. Retrieved 2005-07-01.
RayMing Chang, Revisiting the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990: A Follow-up Survey About Awareness and Waiver, 13 TEX. INTELL. PROP. L.J. 129 (2005)
This article analyzes the history of VARA and presents empirical data about the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) from an exhaustive survey that the author conducted in 2003.
RARIN - Rights and Reproductions Information Network for Museum Professionals

References