Art Articles & Reviews

An imperfect resolution to the problem of images being stolen from artist and gallery sites has been reached. Artists whose images were taken can request they be removed from the site. It appears they are complying with these requests, though they have neither been speedy nor accurate in their work. Some artists who have sent e-mails are still listed on their site, and Arch-World makes no promise that they will not continue the practice of taking images first and asking for permission later. It may be that several e-mails will be required before they finally comply with the request. To request your images be removed from their site, send an e-mail to: [email protected] . To find out if your artwork is listed on their site, use Robert Genn's list (click on the artist name) at www.painterskeys.com/clickbacks/chinese-list.asp?r=c. This has been a difficult and emotional situation for us all. Now that we have an effective course of action, it's time to thank everyone who participated. Robert Genn, our government officials (esp. Robin Mader) and CARFAC are a few of the players who deserve to be singled out. If you sent e-mails to individuals or organisations to elicit their help, please don't forget to thank them. Here is the text of the form letter: Dear Sir or Madam: Upon receiving your e-mail, we immediately removed your name and works from our site, and honestly made an apology for our conduct. Essentially, we would like to contact you to obtain your authorization directly, but it is a difficult job to find all artists worldwide. We indicated artists’ names of the artworks on the site, in order to protect your legal interest. Besides that, we made a statement on the site, and gave out our contact information, hoping the artist himself or the copyright holder of his artworks to contact us. At present, the site is in trial operation, and not yet spread widely. The shopping cart and the whole buying process you saw is just for test of our B2C system, so far we have concluded any business. Certainly, we knew that China signed on Berne Convention in 1992, and that the Chinese government has the obligations to protect the interest of copyright holders of all signature countries. Therefore, we do not sell any reproduction of the copyrighted artworks. In fact, www.arch-world.cn is now a nonprofit website, providing some information and knowledge on architecture, interior design, furniture, building materials and artworks for people in China, so the site is free apart from those contents which are authorized to pay by copyright holders or holders of legal rights and interests. We sincerely hope you put your works on the site, and promise your works are just for browsing only, not for selling. We are very sorry for any harm incurred from our conduct to you once again. Besides, we are developing another e-business site www.art-world.cn, aiming at building a bridge between artists worldwide and Chinese art consumers, and all artworks to be sold on the site will be original and authorized by their copyright holders. We sincerely look forward to having your response soon, and thank you very much for your support and cooperation. Best wishes, Yunnan Longway Information Industry Co., Ltd.