Dali Family Can Keep Royalties From French Art Sale, Court Says

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Spain, which owns the rights to Salvador Dali’s artwork, lost a European Union lawsuit over royalties from sales of the artist’s paintings in France, where such payments are limited to family members.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg today said French law is compatible with the EU’s 2001 rule requiring that artists’ beneficiaries share in resale prices. Unlike Spain, France only allows the payments to artists and their heirs.

“Member states may make their own legislative choice in determining the categories of persons capable of benefiting from the resale right after the death of the author of a work of art,” the court said today in a press release about the ruling.

A group set up to collect royalties for Spain sued its French counterpart in 2005 to reclaim some resale royalties paid to Dali’s heirs. An advocate general for the EU court in December sided with France in a non-binding opinion.

Dali, praised for surrealist works including his 1931 “The Persistence of Memory,” left all of his intellectual property rights to the Spanish government when he died in 1989. The artist died a widower and had no children or descendants.

Dali had five family members when he died. In his will, he made Spain the “universal and unconditional heir to all his property, rights and artistic creations,” according to the advocate general’s opinion in December.

The French royalties group has made regular payments to Spain on all non-resale uses of Dali’s works in France, court records show.

France’s 1920 law was inspired by the private resale of a Jean-Francois Millet painting that didn’t benefit the French painter’s heirs, according to the advocate general’s opinion. The EU rule has its roots in the French law, it said.

Today’s ruling said France has the right to limit who qualifies for such payments. It also said that EU countries must determine for themselves which national law applies to individual sales of art.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 15, 2010 04:32 EDT