AMICO and ARS agreement

I'm pleased to announce the following agreement between the Art
Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) and the Artists Rights Society
(ARS). It's a small step, but an important one for facilitating
educational access to contemporary and modern art.

Please feel free to forward the following press release to other
interested parties, and to contact me if you have any questions
about AMICO or its programs. AMICO Membership is open to any
institution with a collection of works of art, willing to
participate in the activities of the consortium.

AMICO Press Release
June 1, 1999

Art Museum Image Consortium and the Artists Rights Society Reach
Important Agreement

AMICO Headquarters; Pittsburgh, PA

Contemporary and Modern art is now available for education! The Art
Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) and the Artists Rights Society (ARS)
are delighted to announce they have reached an agreement to ensure
that 20th century art will be available in the AMICO Library, a
subscription-based resource for use in education, research, and
teaching. ARS has granted AMICO a non-exclusive, North American
license to include digital images of copyrighted works of art by
artists and estates represented by the Artists Rights Society in the
AMICO Library, where these works may be consulted with other
multimedia documentation (extended texts and other materials)
created by AMICO Member Museums.  In return for the use of these
copyrighted works of art, AMICO will share a proportionate royalty
based on subscription income with ARS.

   "We've broken a log-jam," said Jennifer Trant, Executive Director
    of AMICO. "With this agreement the AMICO Library can fully
    represent the modern and contemporary works held by AMICO
    Members without the added burden of separate rights clearance,"
    Ms. Trant continued. "Those AMICO Members whose collections are
    predominately comprised of works from these periods, such as the
    Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of
    Modern Art, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, and the
    Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, will certainly benefit
    from our relationship with ARS. This agreement eases the process
    for everyone involved."

Theodore Feder, President of the Artists Rights Society, also felt
the agreement was "a win-win.  Contemporary artists' work will be
much more available for educational purposes, while ensuring their
appropriate use under an educational license agreement."  He was
pleased that ARS was part of the AMICO concept saying that "the
Consortium really sets the standard for dissemination of digital
images of works of art in a learning setting."

AMICO Members also welcomed the enhanced coordination this ARS and
AMICO agreement will provide. "We can really participate in the
AMICO Library to our full potential," stated Director of the San
Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Hugh Davies. Maxwell L. Anderson,
Director, Whitney Museum of American Art, observed, "as the arts
community navigates through the uncertain waters of copyright
legislation in a wired world, it is very exciting to have brought
two critical constituencies together in service of education: our
major modern and contemporary artists and our leading art museums.
Thanks to the agreement with ARS, AMICO can now aspire to present
the fullest possible dimensions of contemporary art."

In the end, it's the subscribers to the AMICO Library who will
benefit the most from this agreement. Contemporary art will be
included in the AMICO Library without any change in the subscription
fees.  And individual teachers and students will not have to worry
about the time consuming and uncertain process of obtaining
copyright clearances. Over time, collaborations such as these will
ensure that the AMICO Library grows in breadth and depth, to become
a resource used in research, teaching and learning in all arts and
humanities disciplines.

The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) is a not-for-profit
association of art-collecting institutions working together to
enable educational use of their digital documentation. The AMICO
Library is a growing collection of digital multimedia (now text and
image and over time also sound and moving image), compiled by AMICO
Members and made available under license for educational use.
Subscriptions to the AMICO Library are available beginning July 1,
1999, through not-for-profit distributors such as the Research
Libraries Group. Educational institutions, universities, public
libraries, and primary through secondary schools will have access to
over 50,000 works of art.

Founded in October 1997, as a program of the Association of Art
Museum Directors Educational Foundation, Inc., AMICO was separately
incorporated as an independent non-profit corporation in June of
1998, ending its direct connection with the AAMD.  The Consortium is
today made up of 28 of the major art collections in North America
and is regularly adding new Members. If you are interested in
becoming an AMICO Member or Subscriber, please contact Jennifer
Trant, Executive Director <jtrant [at] amico__org>. Full details about
AMICO and its activities can be found at <URL:http://www.amico.org/>

Artists Rights Society (ARS) <URL:http://www.arsny.com/"> was
appointed in 1986, by the French copyright societies for visual
artists to represent the copyright and permissions interests of
their members within the United States. Since then, ARS has signed
reciprocal contracts with more than twenty other visual artists
rights organizations worldwide. The membership lists of these
organizations include the majority of artists active in this
century, including Georges Braque, Joseph Beuys, Constantin
Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto
Giacometti, John Heartfield, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Leger, Man
Ray, Joan Miro, and Edvard Munch. In addition, our direct European
adherents include the estates of Pablo Picasso (through the Picasso
Administration ), Henri Matisse (through the Succession Matisse),
and Rene Magritte. ARS also acts on behalf of American artists and
actively lobbies state and federal legislatures for stronger and
more effective artist's rights laws.

Contact Information:

    AMICO
    Jennifer Trant
    Executive Director
    Art Museum Image Consortium
    2008 Murray Avenue, Suite D
    Pittsburgh, PA 15217
    412-422-8533
    Fax: 412-422-8594
    jtrant [at] amico__org

    ARS
    Theodore Feder
    President
    Artists Rights Society
    65 Bleecker Street, 9th Floor
    New York, NY 10012
    212-420-9160
    Fax: 212-420-9286
    feder [at] arsny__com


J. Trant

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:2
                   Distributed: Monday, June 21, 1999
                        Message Id: cdl-13-2-015
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