AMICO and ARS reach important agreement

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Jennifer Trant sends the following significant announcement about AMICO.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 15:07:01 -0400
From: J. Trant <jtrant@amico.org>
Subject: AMICO and ARS reach important agreement

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

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. The AMICO Library is available for subscription July 1,
1999.

Best,

jennifer

Art Museum Image Consortium
www. amico.org

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 Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the
Mus�e d'art contemporain de Montr�al, will certainly benefit from our
relationship with ARS. This agreement eases the process for everyone
involved."

	Dr. Theodore Feder, President of the Artists Rights Society, also
felt the agreement has great potential.  Contemporary artists' works will
be much more available for educational purposes, while ensuring their
appropriate use under an educational license agreement.  He was pleased
that ARS could participate in the AMICO concept saying that "the
Consortium helps to set 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 Hugh Davies, Director of the Museum of
Contemporary Art, San Diego. 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 additional 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@amico.org>. Full
details about AMICO and its activities can be found on its web site at
http://www.amico.org

Artists Rights Society (ARS) 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, Wassily
Kandinsky, Fernand L�ger, Man Ray, Joan Mir�, and Edvard Munch. In
addition, ARS' direct European adherents include the estates of Pablo
Picasso (through the Picasso Administration ), Henri Matisse (through the
Succession Matisse), and Ren� 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.  Its American members
include Milton Avery, Leonora Carrington, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner,
Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Frank Stella, and Andy
Warhol.

Contact Information:
AMICO

Jennifer Trant
Executive Director
Art Museum Image Consortium
2008 Murray Avenue, Suite D
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Phone (412) 422 8533
Fax (412) 422 8594
Email: jtrant@amico.org
http://www.amico.org
ARS

Dr. Theodore Feder
President
Darla Decker
Director of Electronic Rights
Artists Rights Society
65 Bleecker Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10012
Phone: (212) 420-9160
Fax: (212) 420-9286
Email: ddecker@arsny.com
http://www.arsny.com

http://www.arsny.com