Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I'm pleased to announce the following agreement between the Art Museum
Image Consortium (AMICO) and the Artists Rights Society (ARS). It's a small
step, but an important one for facilitating educational access to
contemporary and modern art.

Please feel free to forward the following press release to other interested
parties, and to contact me if you have any questions about AMICO or its
programs. AMICO Membership is open to any institution with a collection of
works of art, willing to participate in the activities of the consortium.

Best,

jennifer

AMICO Press Release
June 1, 1999

Art Museum Image Consortium and the Artists Rights Society
Reach Important Agreement

AMICO Headquarters; Pittsburgh, PA

        Contemporary and Modern art is now available for education! The Art
Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) and the Artists Rights Society (ARS) are
delighted to announce they have reached an agreement to ensure that 20th
century art will be available in the AMICO Library, a subscription-based
resource for use in education, research, and teaching. ARS has granted
AMICO a non-exclusive, North American license to include digital images of
copyrighted works of art by artists and estates represented by the Artists
Rights Society in the AMICO Library, where these works may be consulted
with other multimedia documentation (extended texts and other materials)
created by AMICO Member Museums.  In return for the use of these
copyrighted works of art, AMICO will share a proportionate royalty based on
subscription income with ARS.

        "We've broken a log-jam," said Jennifer Trant, Executive Director
of AMICO. "With this agreement the AMICO Library can fully represent the
modern and contemporary works held by AMICO Members without the added
burden of separate rights clearance," Ms. Trant continued. "Those AMICO
Members whose collections are predominately comprised of works from these
periods, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, and the
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, will certainly benefit from our
relationship with ARS. This agreement eases the process for everyone
involved."

        Theodore Feder, President of the Artists Rights Society, also felt
the agreement was "a win-win.  Contemporary artists' work will be much more
available for educational purposes, while ensuring their appropriate use
under an educational license agreement."  He was pleased that ARS was part
of the AMICO concept saying that "the Consortium really sets the standard
for dissemination of digital images of works of art in a learning setting."

AMICO Members also welcomed the enhanced coordination this ARS and AMICO
agreement will provide. "We can really participate in the AMICO Library to
our full potential," stated Director of the San Diego Museum of
Contemporary Art, Hugh Davies. Maxwell L. Anderson, Director, Whitney
Museum of American Art, observed, "as the arts community navigates through
the uncertain waters of copyright legislation in a wired world, it is very
exciting to have brought two critical constituencies together in service of
education: our major modern and contemporary artists and our leading art
museums. Thanks to the agreement with ARS, AMICO can now aspire to present
the fullest possible dimensions of contemporary art."

In the end, it's the subscribers to the AMICO Library who will benefit the
most from this agreement. Contemporary art will be included in the AMICO
Library without any change in the subscription fees.  And individual
teachers and students will not have to worry about the time consuming and
uncertain process of obtaining copyright clearances. Over time,
collaborations such as these will ensure that the AMICO Library grows in
breadth and depth, to become a resource used in research, teaching and
learning in all arts and humanities disciplines.

The Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) is a not-for-profit association of
art-collecting institutions working together to enable educational use of
their digital documentation. The AMICO Library is a growing collection of
digital multimedia (now text and image and over time also sound and moving
image), compiled by AMICO Members and made available under license for
educational use. Subscriptions to the AMICO Library are available beginning
July 1, 1999, through not-for-profit distributors such as the Research
Libraries Group. Educational institutions, universities, public libraries,
and primary through secondary schools will have access to over 50,000 works
of art.

Founded in October 1997, as a program of the Association of Art Museum
Directors Educational Foundation, Inc., AMICO was separately incorporated
as an independent non-profit corporation in June of 1998, ending its direct
connection with the AAMD.  The Consortium is today made up of 28 of the
major art collections in North America and is regularly adding new Members.
If you are interested in becoming an AMICO Member or Subscriber, please
contact Jennifer Trant, Executive Director <[log in to unmask]>. Full details
about AMICO and its activities can be found on its web site at
http://www.amico.org

Artists Rights Society (ARS) was appointed in 1986, by the French copyright
societies for visual artists to represent the copyright and permissions
interests of their members within the United States. Since then, ARS has
signed reciprocal contracts with more than twenty other visual artists
rights organizations worldwide. The membership lists of these organizations
include the majority of artists active in this century, including Georges
Braque, Joseph Beuys, Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali,
Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, John Heartfield, Wassily Kandinsky,
Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Joan Miró, and Edvard Munch. In addition, our
direct European adherents include the estates of Pablo Picasso (through the
Picasso Administration ), Henri Matisse (through the Succession Matisse),
and René Magritte. ARS also acts on behalf of American artists and actively
lobbies state and federal legislatures for stronger and more effective
artist's rights laws.

Contact Information:

AMICO
Jennifer Trant
Executive Director
Art Museum Image Consortium
2008 Murray Avenue, Suite D
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
Phone (412) 422 8533
Fax (412) 422 8594
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.amico.org
ARS

Theodore Feder
President
Artists Rights Society
65 Bleecker Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10012
Phone: (212) 420-9160
Fax: (212) 420-9286
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.arsny.com
________
J. Trant                        2008 Murray Ave, Suite D
Executive Director              Pittsburgh, PA 15217 USA
Art Museum Image Consortium
http://www.amico.org            Phone: +1 412 422 8533
[log in to unmask]                Fax: +1 412 422 8594
________

========================================================Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://museums.state.nm.us/nmmnh/museum-l.html. You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to
[log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "Signoff
Museum-L" (without the quotes).