EU Court Ruling on Art Reproduction Rights: Changing Medium Requires New Authorization

A 2015 European Court of Justice ruling (Case C-419/13) has significant implications for the art world, particularly regarding the reproduction of artworks on different media. The case pitted Dutch collecting society Stichting Pictoright against Art & Allposter, a company that sells posters and canvas reproductions of famous paintings. Allposter used a process to transfer images from paper posters onto canvas, destroying the original paper support. Pictoright argued this created a new reproduction requiring separate authorization from copyright holders. The Court agreed, stating that replacing the support creates a new object incorporating the protected image, constituting a new reproduction that falls under the author's exclusive right. Therefore, such modifications need specific consent from the rights holder. The ruling underscores that all forms of economic exploitation of an artwork require the author's authorization for each independent commercialization. The decision was reported by Raffaella Pellegrino in Artribune Magazine #30.