Sunday, April 14, 2019

Reprographic Royalties Part 2: Filing a Claim for UK Royalties

Once you have joined the Artists Rights Society (ARS) as an Illustrator Member, you'll be eligible to file claims for international reprographic royalties.

Because each country has different filing requirements, the most sensible step will be for American illustrators to begin compiling a catalog of their published works. The catalog need not be complete nor created all-at-once, but can be researched and/or reconstructed over the years. The more complete it is, of course, the stronger your claims will eventually be.

For ARS members, the next immediate deadline will be to file claims with the British Design & Artists Copyright Society. DACS distributes royalties for the secondary use - such as from photocopying - of images published in the UK. This can include American books and magazines sold in the UK or housed in the British Library, for example, the CA Magazine Illustration Annual, among others. ARS Illustrators may apply online directly with DACS, or via ARS by filling out the form which can be downloaded here.

 The rules for the UK are the following:
1. You must own the copyright. Under US copyright law, you do own the copyright on your work (whether it was registered or not) unless it was done under a work-for-hire contract.

2. There is no backward limit to when the work needs to have been published. You may count your entire publication history through December 31, 2018.

3. There are two forms: Payback 2019 and Publication History
Payback will not take long to fill out. It is due end-of-day April 22.
Publication History will take longer, but you will have eleven months to complete it. ARS Illustration Members will receive the Publication History form later.  

Instructions for Payback:
a. Download the UK form here.

b. Fill in your name and Zipcode (Postcode). Ignore the Claim Reference Number. ARS will fill in this number for you.

c. Fill in the total number of books in which you have been published during your career; provide the detailed information requested on 3 example books, and estimate the total number of times your images were published in books during your career.

d. Repeat this process for the magazines section.

e. Count, or estimate, your total images published in books and magazines as closely as you can. When counting, count the number of times your images were used in total (e.g., cover, table of contents, chapter opener, article, etc.). You will need to back this information up on the detailed Publication History Form you will send in later.

f. For these three examples, either books or magazines, the UK requires the ISBN for books, and the ISSN and Issue No./Cover date for magazines. 
(The Issue No./Cover date is not required for the Publication History Form you will send in later.)
Tip: Most magazines have one permanent ISSN number; i.e. each issue of one publication will have the same ISSN number.

 g. If a book or magazine was published without an ISBN or ISSN number do not submit it. If you don't have a physical copy, the following online resources may help you identify the ISBN or ISSN:

    •     Copyright Licensing Agency's Title Search
    •     Integrated Catalogue of the British Library
    •     Worldcat
    •     JISC
    •     Searching Amazon or Google Books  may also help.

h. UK requires the 13-digit ISBN.
If you need to convert a 10-digit ISBN to a 13-digit ISBN do so here: https://isbnconverter.sampo.co.uk/
i. You are also eligible for royalties if your work was broadcast on BBC, Discovery, A&E, National Geographic, CBBS CBeebi, or BBC News.

j. Send this form in by April 22.
The Payback website can be found here: Payback. The link to their Frequently Asked Questions page, detailing how the scheme works, and what is eligible (and what is not...!) is here: FAQs.

The deadline to submit to ARS for UK Payback 2019 is end-of day April 22nd, 2019. 

To apply via ARS, please download and fill out the Payback form according to the above instructions and send to Artists Rights Society by April 22nd.

We prefer to submit this on your behalf in one Excel form, but as you will note from the DACS site, you can also submit to DACS directly, which is also fine. Please direct questions to Janet Hicks, ARS Director of Licensing.

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