Legal Issues Associated With Setting Up a Commercial Art Gallery in Tasmania

The Legal Issues Associated with Setting up A Commercial Art Gallery in Tasmania, Australia
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The Legal Issues Associated with Setting up A Commercial Art Gallery in Tasmania, Australia
Introduction
Australia is known for its elaborate and enthusiastic art market that consists of various kinds of arts such as photographs, ceramics, antiquities, paintings, sculptures, and works in glass among others. Some of the indigenous Australian artists who made these works of art are dead and honored, some dead and ignored and others are alive and struggling (Polk, 1999). Australia has two main cultures, which is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Aboriginal Australians are the native inhabitants of Tasmania and the mainland of Australia while Torres Strait Islander individuals are the residents of the islands of Torres Strait. Understanding these two indigenous cultures is significant when approaching business dealings involving visual arts sector (Mellor & Janke, 2001). Many different actors of Australian art market exist such as commercial galleries, arts and crafts shops, auction houses, and artists who sell directly to consumers.
Arts and crafts industry in Australia is not different from the other industries regarding problems that befall business enterprises. Unethical conducts and concerns about fraud within the Australian art industry are increasing each day resulting in persistent need to examine the legislation that protects people from such unethical practices and exploitation. Furthermore, it has led to need to find out how the law mechanisms work in reality and the step to be taken to improve the protection of the artists and the art business industry (The Senate Report, 2007). Therefore, various laws that govern the visual arts industry together with the laws governing new business set-ups are present in the Australian federal legislation. Anyone who plans to set up a commercial art gallery in Tasmania should be conversant with the legal issues associated with it. This paper will identify and discuss these legal problems and analyze the preferable legal outcomes related to setting up a commercial art gallery in Tasmania in Australia.
Legal issues related to Setting up a Commercial Art Gallery
Copyright
Setting up a commercial art gallery in Tasmania in Australia would require the business owner to understand about copyright. It is a parcel of property rights that creators own and it protects an individual’s artistic, creative skills and labor such as sculptures, engravings, paintings, drawing, photographs, crafts, and models of buildings (Mellor & Janke, 2001). Copyright consists of restricted economic rights to perform particular acts with an original work of art, including the right to publish, right to copy and communicate (Government of Australia, 2012). The Copyright Act, allows creators to possess legal rights to make more copies of their work, use it and give others permission to utilize and produce copies their works (Mellor & Janke, 2001). An artist of an artwork is usually the first owner of copyright no matter how many times the work may be sold. If the artwork meets the required standards of this law, artists can protect their artworks as soon ...