United States · Bill · HR
H.R. 3688 (112th)
Equity for Visual Artists Act of 2011
Introduced
15 December 2011
Last action
—
Status
Referred to the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet.
Sponsors
—
Subjects
Discovery layer
Source updated
8 June 2026
Summary
Equity for Visual Artists Act of 2011 - Requires, whenever a work of visual art is sold for at least $10,000 at an auction by someone other than the authoring artist, that the entity collecting the money or other consideration pay a royalty equal to 7% of the price to a visual artists' collecting society. Defines an "auction" as public sale run by an entity that: (1) sells to the highest bidder works of visual art in which the cumulative amount of such works sold during the previous year is over $25 million, and (2) does not solely conduct the sale of such visual art on the Internet. Requires the collecting society to: (1) distribute half of the net royalty to the artist or their successor as copyright owner, and (2) deposit the other half into an escrow account to fund purchases by U.S. nonprofit art museums of works of visual art authored by living artists domiciled in the United States. Establishes a copyright infringement offense for the failure of the entity collecting the money or other consideration to pay such a royalty. Subjects an infringer to the payment of statutory damages. Excludes works of visual art from copyright notice procedures. Directs the Register of Copyrights to issue regulations governing the designation and oversight of visual artists' collecting societies. Requires that specified fees be paid to the Register out of the total royalty payments received by collecting societies.
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Documents
3 official files
Introduced in House (text)
Introduced in House (text)
Introduced in House · EN · 15 December 2011
Introduced in House (PDF)
Introduced in House · EN · 15 December 2011
Introduced in House
summary · EN · 15 December 2011
Sponsors
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Sources
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- Official source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/3688
- Open data entity: https://api.congress.gov/v3/bill/112/hr/3688