Artistic property

1. This contribution echoes the article entitled “Artistic Property” written by Jacques-Louis Duchemin in the April 1958 special issue of RIDA devoted to the law of 11 March 1957. Jacques-Louis Duchemin was Secretary General of SPADEM, the Society for the Artistic Property of Designs and Models. This collective management organisation was placed in compulsory liquidation in 1996. Most of its members joined ADAGP. 2. What is meant by “artistic property”? This expression, which is seldom used nowadays, refers to the authors’ rights rules applicable to a specific category of works, covering works of art – the fine arts and decorative arts – as well as, more generally, most creations of what are known as the “visual” arts. Like Jacques-Louis Duchemin at the time, we shall give the expression its broadest definition: it will be a question here of graphic and plastic artworks in the strict sense, photographs, works of applied art and architecture.