National Priority 7

Arts Industry

The focus of this priority is to ensure Indigenous artists have an understanding of their rights, that the industry understands its fair trading obligations, and consumers are protected from misleading representations about the authenticity of artworks and souvenirs.

The production of Indigenous art and craft is an important expression of Indigenous cultural heritage and is a generator of significant income that assists in the economic independence of Indigenous people.

Low levels of understanding about an artist’s legal rights, the complexities of intellectual property and copyright law and how these interact with consumer protection require the development of targeted information and education packages. There is also a need to understand the industry better through a process of consultation and a need to better coordinate compliance activity in this area.

Issues	Actions	Responsibility	Timeline
Exploitative conduct in the commercial relationship between Indigenous artists and dealers, galleries, retailers and wholesalers.	Acknowledge that misleading and deceptive conduct in relation to Indigenous art is a responsibility of consumer agencies.	Consumer agencies.	Ongoing.
Misleading and deceptive conduct and false representation of Indigenous art and craft at the point of sale.	Undertake education campaigns with consumers, communities, artists, dealers, retail outlets, auction houses, galleries and manufacturers to alert them to their protections and obligations under the law. This might include adopting pre-packaged training, such as the Artists in the Black initiative.	Consumer agencies.	Ongoing.
Authorship, authenticity and intellectual property issues in relation to production, sale, re-sale, licensing, royalties and reproduction of Indigenous arts.	Identify a lead agency to develop a national Indigenous Arts Charter in order to improve marketplace behaviour and voluntary compliance with the law. The charter would be a 'best practice' document for all parties in the industry.	ACCC to liaise with the commonwealth Department of Communication, Information Technology and the Arts, Office of Indigenous and Policy Coordination to identify a lead agency to develop a charter.	July 2006.
Problems arising from the potential for anti-competitive marketplace conduct.	Monitor the structure of the industry and anti-competitive behaviour involving artists, dealers, auction houses, galleries and art centres.	ACCC and consumer agencies.	Ongoing.