| SUMMER 2008 |
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A Virgin's Guide to... Research 1. Ask the question Until a question has been subjected to rigorous survey and scrutiny our knowledge remains little more than intuition and guesswork - a point which seems to have been missed by those behind the Antiques Trade Gazette's latest publication looking at the impact of the Artist's Resale Right. When published in February the commentary announced that the resale right had been a complete disaster. What a load of rubbish. To date DACS has collected £5.2 million for over 1500 artists in an art market that had doubled its 2004 value from £4.2 to £8.5 billion. There is no anecdotal, or in fact empirical evidence to show the Artist's Resale Right has been a bad idea. 2. Ask a lot of people the same question Shortly after the publication of this report it emerged that the Antiques Trade Gazette had only used a sample size of 35 art market professionals. 3. Ask all sorts of people the same question It's not just the size of the sample that matters - rather, who's in it. Not only did the research exclude artists and collecting societies, the Antiques Trade Gazette had failed to recognise that a sample size of 35 is not truly representative of the entire UK art market. The result: more a piece of journalism than rigorous scrutiny. Unsurprisingly the independent research carried out by Maven Research on behalf of DACS comes to quite different conclusions to those published in this poorly executed study. In addition, DACS' broadly agrees with the research report produced by the UK Intellectual Property Office. It seems that the Antiques Trade Gazette research is out in the cold. The Artist's Resale Right is successfully operating in the UK and is not having a detrimental effect on the booming art market. The UK Government is currently consulting on the mandatory extension of the Right to artists' heirs and beneficiaries. DACS strongly believes in this Right and is working closely with the Government to ensure the implementation of the Artist's Resale Right is completed.
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