Museum and Royalties: A Proposal to Facilitate Loans

Daniella Fischetti, Rutgers University - Newark

Abstract

This paper will consider the ways in which the principles of copyright may be extended to otherwise unprotected works thereby allowing for a system of royalties, similar to that used by ASCAP or BMI in the music industry, applicable to cultural property located outside its source county and of disputed provenance and legal controversy. While a system of royalties is predicated on the ownership of a copyright of a work in a fixed, tangible form, antiquities and other types of cultural property predate copyright, placing them in the public domain. By comparing the underlying ideas of copyright and intellectual property laws and drawing parallels with general loan agreements between museums and galleries, a kind of “cultural copyright” can be configured to compensate creator cultures for their cultural heritage. This would benefit countries in need of financial resources and allow works of cultural property to be seen viewed by many more museum visitors around the world.