International art theft | Arch-world

For those artists who are cruising these sites and happen to notice living artists, perhaps friends, who may not be aware they are represented, they should be notified. It’s still a source of amazement to many of our friends that their work was on the Arch-World site for two years and nobody knew about it.

Robert

Robert

Robert

On Wednesday the 21st we sent the following to Arch-World:

Thank you for your continued action to remove art from your site. We appreciate this. In your form letter you mention that you are starting up a new commercial site. Could you send us a copy of the contract that you will be offering to artists?

All the best and thanks for your time.

Robert Genn

Sincerely, Best wishes
Arch-world@longway.cn

For those in Canada, I’m currently scheduled to be interviewed on CBC Radio One on a coast-to-coast hookup at unspecified times in all time zones on the afternoon of Wednesday December 21, 2005.

Also on the Canadian front, Robin Mader, of the Canadian Trade Commission for Visual Arts, has told us that these sorts of things are generally a “private matter” between individuals — and best handled that way. She has however made arrangements for a strong diplomatic letter to be passed between the Canadian Embassy in Beijing to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Trading and Law Department. This is to occur at noon Beijing time on December 20, 2005. We’ll keep you informed.

As concerned and affected artists, our most important job is to inform others who might not want to be “represented” by Arch-World. Please telephone or email people you know who may still be on the site. Protests to Chinese Embassies can’t hurt either. As I write this another email has just come in with a copy of a polite request made only a few hours ago that has resulted in the removal of several pages of a young lady’s paintings. Arch-World is a big site, and there are still lots of indignant artists to go. I’ve asked Andrew to email Michelangelo, Claude Monet and Francisco Zuccarelli, but these guys don’t seem to be checking their inboxes these days.

Robert

This includes paintings from the Galeria Borhese, Rome; The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Alte Pinakothex, Munich, and many others. What to do about it? If you are cruising the list below and see the name of someone — or some institution — you feel should be alerted, please get in touch with them. Also if you notice any changes, or the return of work onto the Arch-World or other site, please let us. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of individual artists, we are making headway with Arch-World. In the meantime we are carefully archiving all of your letters in this matter.

If you’re interested in getting an overview of the current attacks on our global economy, you might pick up a copy of Illicit — How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy by Moises Naim

Robert

Nevertheless, most artists continue to be upset. For example Ardath Davis wrote to arch-world@longway.cn

One by one, in this way, we seem to be appealing to their sense of decency. Perhaps they are just respecting our individual and heartfelt requests. It seems to us that about half of the artists who have written and asked for removal have been successful. It may have something to do with repetition. My work floated away after my third letter. When the work goes off the following appears in the upper left hand corner of your page:

Robert

Essentially, we would like to contact you to obtain your authorization directly, but it is a difficult job to find all artists worldwide. We indicated artists’ names of the artworks on the site, in order to protect your legal interest. Besides that, we made a statement on the site, and gave out our contact information, hoping the artist himself or the copyright holder of his artworks to contact us.

At present, the site is in trial operation, and not yet spread widely. The shopping cart and the whole buying process you saw is just for test of our B2C system, so far we have concluded any business. Certainly, we knew that China signed on Berne Convention in 1992, and that the Chinese government has the obligations to protect the interest of copyright holders of all signature countries. Therefore, we do not sell any reproduction of the copyrighted artworks. In fact, www.arch-world.cn is now a nonprofit website, providing some information and knowledge on architecture, interior design, furniture, building materials and artworks for people in China, so the site is free apart from those contents which are authorized to pay by copyright holders or holders of legal rights and interests. We sincerely hope you put your works on the site, and promise your works are just for browsing only, not for selling. We are very sorry for any harm incurred from our conduct to you once again.

Besides, we are developing another e-business site www.art-world.cn, aiming at building a bridge between artists worldwide and Chinese art consumers, and all artworks to be sold on the site will be original and authorized by their copyright holders. We sincerely look forward to having your response soon, and thank you very much for your support and cooperation.

Best wishes,

Yunnan Longway Information Industry Co., Ltd.

Robert

But let’s not get carried away here — another Chinese site with the same stuff could pop up at any time — so our continued vigilance will be needed. I strongly advise artists, curators and gallery owners to keep googling artists’ names to see if anything appears. And please keep us informed. In the meantime, please join Andrew and I online for celebration and Champagne.

Robert