The Artful Jurist

A friend brought up a topic the other day. She said she heard about some law where an artist who sells a work for a relatively small amount of money early in her career can be entitled to a small percentage of the profits if that work is later sold again for a larger sum of money (presumably when the artist has garnered some fame and her work has increased in value). Did my friend hear right?

Yes, she did. It's a legal doctrine known as droit de suite. As you can probably guess from the name, it was originated in France some years ago, and it has been embraced by other European countries.

Here in the United States, though, only California has some form of droit de suite, and it applies only to art that's either sold in California or where the art seller lives there.