Pictoright

About Us

Pictoright is the author’s rights organisation for visual creators in the Netherlands: illustrators, artists, graphic designers, photographers and other professional image creators.
Pictoright distributes collective royalties, manages copyrights for artists, provides legal assistance, offers advice and strives for a better copyright position for image creators.

We administer reproductions rights for approximately 2,000 Dutch and 50,000 foreign visual artists in the Netherlands.
Pictoright collects and distributes all royalties to which authors are entitled. It operates in the following areas:

* reproduction rights (books, posters, press, merchandising etc.);
* resale rights (droit de suite);
* collective rights (i.e. reprographic rights, lending rights, tv/cable rights)

Information for creators

Individual rights

Are you an independent artist, art photographer, architect, industrial designer or other visual creator whose work is not usually commissioned by publishers or print media? Is your work published in print, digital or visual media without you having made agreements about this? You can outsource the task of keeping track of what appears where, arranging the licences and collecting the fee to Pictoright. That saves a lot of tracing work, phone calls, administration and negotiating with editorial staff. And you are assured that your work will only be used with your permission and for a reasonable fee.
This does not mean that your work will be published less often; Pictoright has current agreements with most publishers. Our customers are already accustomed to paying a fee for using work.
If you register for the management of your individual rights, you will immediately qualify for the proceeds from collective royalties and our legal assistance. Pictoright acts against plagiarism and unauthorised use where possible.

Registering for individual rights

Pictoright manages and protects the individual author’s rights of over 50,000 image creators. We represent painters, sculptors, architects, ceramicists, photographers, illustrators, graphic designers, industrial designers and gold- and silversmiths at home and abroad. From Jan Schoonhoven to Salvador Dalí, from Gerrit Rietveld to Man Ray. Any visual creator can join Pictoright. The legal heirs of the creator or corporate entities such as foundations or art collectives can also call on our services.
Pictoright knows the market better than anyone and has good agreements with publishers, broadcasters, museums, companies, public bodies and advertising agencies. For a small charge we protect your author’s rights without you having to worry about it. You can sign up with us using this registration form.

Contribution

The contribution for managing your individual rights is € 45 per year. The contribution for corporate entities is € 90 per year. You will receive a contribution invoice from Pictoright annually in May; the amount will be automatically debited from your account. There is a € 5 surcharge if you want to pay the contribution yourself.

Collection

Fees for individual rights are levied after a report of use from Pictoright, its sister organisations, the user or the artist themselves. In most cases this involves use with permission. This may be because a user has asked for permission to use particular works in advance. There is also an increasing number of users who have concluded an agreement with Pictoright. These include publishers of newspapers, art books and magazines. They often have prior permission. These users report the use of works of art on a regular basis and enable Pictoright to check all publications. When a use has been noted, the author’s royalty is collected from the user.

Distribution

Collected individual royalties are distributed to those registered with Pictoright four times a year following the end of each quarter. 25% of the royalties are retained.

Collective Rights

Are your photographs, illustrations or works of art shown in books, magazines or newspapers or depicted on television? Did you know that money is collected for lending and copying images and for distributing images via cable? Because it is not practical to collect these royalties individually, this is done collectively, after which they are distributed by Pictoright amongst those who are entitled to them. All you have to do is register in order to qualify for that money. A membership for collective rights is free! Through mijnpictoright.nl you can log your contributions to the various media online. At the end of the year you will receive a statement from us of the royalties which we will be paying out to you.

What are the 4 collective royalties?
1.Lending royalty
Public libraries pay a royalty to the Stichting Leenrecht (Lending Right Foundation) for all the books, magazines, CDs and DVDs that they lend out. Pictoright distributes these lending royalties amongst the entitled image creators. That is done on the basis of the number of times that a work is lent out and the number of images per publication.
2.Remunerations for collective rights
This consists of 3 remunerations: Reprographic, Reader and Clippings remunerations. Reprographic remuneration: There is often extensive photocopying within companies and organisations. Under the ‘Regeling Reprorecht Bedrijfsleven’ (Businesses Repro Royalty Scheme) all companies which operate in the Netherlands and have the use of a photocopier must pay a fixed fee based on the number of employees and the sector in which the company operates. Pictoright distributes this money amongst the visual creators who register. This is done on the basis of the nature of the publications in which your images are published. Reader remuneration: The readers which universities and colleges compile for their students often contain all sorts of chapters and paragraphs from books, magazines and newspapers which have been published previously. An annual royalty is calculated on the basis of the average use, and is paid out by Pictoright to the image creators who qualify.
3.Home copying royalty
The selling price of every blank CD, DVD, PC, HDD-Drive, smartphone, MP3 player or settopbox includes a royalty for the makers of the programmes, texts and images which the consumer copies onto those media at home. Stichting de Thuiskopie (Home Copying Foundation) passes on to Pictoright the share intended for visual creators, and Pictoright distributes it to those who have registered.
4.Cable and television royalty
Many television programmes - talk shows, game shows, documentaries - depict artworks or image material. The cable companies are required to pay an annual royalty for transmitting these broadcasts via the cable. The public broadcasters also pay royalties for this. Pictoright distributes this money at the request of those who have submitted a list of their work which has been shown on television.

Registering for collective royalties
If you would like to claim the collective royalties, please complete the collective royalties registration form. As soon as we have processed it, we will send you an e-mail with log-in details in order to be able to report online.

Procedure
To qualify for collective royalties you must submit an annual report of published work yourself. You can report digitally throughout the year by logging on to Mijnpictoright.nl. With your own log-in details you can see on the summary which publications we are already aware of. You can also enter contributions for the current year. Payment
The payment rounds (allocations) take place in December. This is done in two parts: first the books, magazines and newspapers, and then TV reports. AVDM and Books Abroad follow at another time of the year. A second allocation round often follows in March or April of the following year which incorporates corrections and supplementary information about the previous years.

Information for image users

When will you have dealings with us?
Virtually every publication, every website and every television programme uses images. Copyright law stipulates that the author’s permission is required for this. That permission is usually linked to a financial payment: image creators must, after all, live on the income from their creative labours.
Apart from a couple of exceptions, publishers and producers are obliged to trace the creators of the images in order to ask permission for publication. The fact that this is not always easy does not detract from this obligation. Pictoright enables the user to arrange this effectively in advance. Over 50,000 image creators both in the Netherlands and abroad are registered with us and we issue licences on their behalf. Our rates are harmonised with sister organisations abroad. Pictoright arranges permission for publication.
Asking permission is compulsory
Users are often confused as to what they can and cannot do under copyright law. The golden rule is: anyone who wants to publish someone else’s image must ask permission for this from the creator or their heirs. This obligation only lapses 70 years after the death of the artist. Hence the work of Rembrandt is rights-free, but that of Picasso is not. Anyone who publishes a picture of a painting by Picasso in a book or leaflet without permission runs the risk of having to pay damages.
The membership list for reproduction rights shows the visual creators for whom Pictoright manages the individual author’s rights. You can use the Request for Permission form to arrange the permission and the fee for the use with Pictoright. If the maker is not signed up with us, you need to arrange this directly with the artist themselves to their heirs.
Request for permission
By submitting a Request for Permission you comply with the requirements of the Auteurswet (Copyright Act). Once we have received your request, permission will be requested from the artist and the royalty will be calculated. You will receive an invoice based on a standard list of charges, after which you can publish the image. Pictoright will arrange the further financial settlement with the artist.
Fees
Pictoright applies standard fees and general charging terms for the use of works. These fees depend on - for example - the purpose of the use, the format and the print run. The tariff list can be viewed here. The charging terms can be found here.
Also read our General Terms and Conditions.
If you are resident in one of the countries where Pictoright has a sister organisation, you can arrange the permission through that sister organisation.
If you would like more information about Pictoright in English, please e-mail info@pictoright.nl

Information on Resale Rights for professional art dealers

In the Netherlands artists and their estates are entitled to collect artists’resale royalties themselves or they can engage a third party to do so. Right holders can join Pictoright, the copyright organisation for visual artists.
Pictoright is a non-profit association supervised by the government (the College van Toezicht Auteursrechten). 2,000 Dutch and 50,000 foreign artists, and their estates, are affiliated to Pictoright. Therefore, you are likely to encounter Pictoright at some point regarding the payment of resale royalties.
Pictoright may require information from art dealers and will regularly notify galleries and dealers. Art dealers must then supply all the information specified above.

What is resale right?
This right entitles the creator of an original work of art to receive a small percentage of the sale price when his/her work is resold. The legislation was introduced in the Dutch Copyright Act on 1 January, 2006.
What are the terms and conditions?
The resale of an artwork must satisfy a number of criteria to qualify for resale royalties.
* Resale right only applies when an artwork is resold and thus have no bearing on the first sale
* It applies to an original artwork or a work that is created by the artist him/herself or under his/her supervision in a limited edition, for example graphic work
* An art market professional must be involved in the sale as either buyer, seller of intermediary. This professional is responsible for payment of the resale royalty
* The resale price must be at least € 3.000
* If the work is resold within three years following its original purchase from the artist, a resale right royalty is payable if the sale price exceeds € 10,000
* The artist must be an EU national, or a national of Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway, or must be a permanent resident of the Netherlands.

As of 1 January, 2012, resale royalty is also payable upon the sale of artwork by deceased artists. As with copyright, a resale royalty is payable for a period of 70 years following the death of the artist.

How much is due?
The amount of resale royalties due ranges from 0,25% to 4% of the resale price:

The maximum sum due in resale royalties is € 12,500.

What are your legal obligations?
Professional art dealers must supply all information necessary for securing the payment of the royalty (Article 43d of the Dutch Copyright Act) including, of course, the resale price and date of sale. If you supply incorrect or insufficient information, this may be regarded as a breach of a statutory obligation that is deemed to be unlawful and/or punishable as a criminal offence. To avoid any misunderstanding, you should therefore supply all relevant information. In the event of doubt, for example regarding to whom, and in which country, the artists’ resale royalties are payable, Pictoright can refer the art dealer to the relevant artist or rightful claimant, or to a sister organisation of Pictoright abroad.
Declaring resales
You can inform Pictoright by sending us the Artist's Resale Rights Submission Form. You can check the membership list on this website of artists who have asked Pictoright to collect their Artist's Resale royalty payments. You only need to supply us with information regarding resales of the works of listed artists. Pictoright can answer any practical questions that art dealers may have.
Collecting and finalizing payments with Pictoright
Art dealers and artists or rightful claimants both benefit from the efficient application of artists’ resale rights. It therefore makes sense for the collection of royalties to be handled by a rights protection organization such as Pictoright.
Pictoright will collect the royalty payments on behalf of the artist or rightful claimant for works resold in the Netherlands before forwarding these payments to the said party. Obviously, Pictoright will first identify the party rightfully entitled to the royalty payment. This relieves the art dealer from this administrative burden. When works are resold in the Netherlands (e.g. at an art fair such as TEFAF) and are then delivered to and/or paid for abroad, Pictoright will still handle the royalty payment. Should an art dealer have already paid resale royalties to Pictoright, any related third-party claims can be referred to Pictoright.