On Droit De Suite

Droit de suite (the right of pursuit) is a right that granted to artists to share theproceeds of any resale of their artistic works, which is an integrated right with bothcopyright-related personal attributes and economic attributes. This system was createdin early20century in France. It is a comprehensive result of different social elements.In2012, China has made some provisions for the right of pursuit in the draftamendment of Copyright Law. It is a law transplantation of right of pursuit. Generally,different ways of legal transplant lead to different results. The transplantation of rightof pursuit should follow some rules of scientificalness, constitutionality and flexibility.Specifically, it cannot depart from the national conditions, including developmentlevel of artwork market, implementation status of relevant legislation, and currentsituation of organization for collective administration of copyright, to arrive atwhether the transplantation is necessary and feasible.In recent years, funds poured into Chinese artworks market. Then China marketis becoming to a new growth point of global artworks investment. However, the boomdoes not mean the maturity of market. Currently, artworks market in China still doesnot have a healthy capital structure. There is a lack of market faith and accountabilitymechanism, and there are also some problems in the statistical data of market. At thesame time, the potential negative effect on artworks market cannot be ignored.In addition, right of pursuit depends on the compulsory management ofcontinental law system. Thus it is necessary to havean organization for collective administration of copyright. At the present stage we donot have a relevant organization to protect and enforce the right of pursuit. Thecurrent organization for collective administration of copyright is facing variousproblems and challenges.Because of the particularity of right of pursuit, we should consider variousfactors when transplanting a law. Current development level of artworks market inChina is still not mature. Also, the organization for collective administration ofcopyright should be perfected further. Thus in current situation, there is no necessityand feasibility of introducing the right of pursuit system.