LOCAL ARTISTS CONCERNED OVER COPYRIGHT LAW 

MBABANE- Michelangelo once said “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

This adage is an indication of how most artists feel when their work is not appreciated enough. An artist, according to Merriam Webster, is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the term is also often used in the entertainment business, especially in a business context, for musicians and other performers (although less often for actors). ‘Artiste’ (French for artist) is a variant used in English in this context, but this use has become rare. Use of the term ‘artist’ to describe writers is valid, but less common, and mostly restricted to contexts like used in criticism.

In Eswatini most of these artists are privileged to work with other reformed artists who back in 2010 established a design studio, ‘Yebo Art Gallery.’ These artists, Pete, Aleta and Dane Armstrong are passionate about promoting the arts and enabling the growth of the creative economy by working together with the most talented professional and emerging artists in Eswatini. Yebo! Has curated 45 exhibitions in its first decade of operation, working with over 80 artists from Eswatini and the rest of the African continent. They also collaborate with artists on product design, community art projects and creative workshops. Their vision for the next five years is to continue growing the creative sector of Eswatini whilst focusing on environmental and social issues - using art as a tool to address issues like climate change, women’s rights and youth unemployment.

The rights around artwork are much less straightforward than one would assume. When it comes to the specific subset of visual works governed by the Visual Artist Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), artists retain certain powers of attribution and disavowal long after the ownership of the actual tangible work of art is in the possession of a collector or institution. It is worth noting though that this Right does not apply in Eswatini yet. VARA affords rights in addition to those afforded by copyright law. While disavowing an artwork through VARA can impact the monetary value of the piece, copyright is much more directly tied to ensuring the economic interest of the artist. Generally speaking, the more original a piece is, the stronger the copyright protections. So what rights are granted to an artist when it comes to copyright? And how can they affect those in possession of a physical work of art? Section 106, Copyright Act of 1976, as amended, codified in Title 17 of the U.S. Code states that copyright gives artists who have created fixed, tangible works a bundle of rights in those works.
The rights provide both artistic protection and ensure that artists can profit from what they’ve made.

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