The Essence and Legal Basis of the Resale Royalty Right
The resale royalty right is Georgia's statutory implementation of an internationally known instrument, and its basis is Article 20 of the Law on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights — the rights of the author of a work of fine art. Under this norm, the author of a work of fine art is entitled to demand of the owner of the work permission to reproduce it — an access right — although the owner cannot be required to bring the work to the author. The royalty itself operates as follows: after the first alienation of the original of a work of fine art or photography, upon every subsequent sale — including through professional intermediaries such as art salons, fine-arts galleries and others — the author or the author's heirs are entitled to receive a royalty from the seller. For the purposes of the article, copies of the original made by the author or with the author's permission in limited quantity are equated with the original. The right thus travels with the work itself: no matter whose hands it passes through, each qualifying resale generates the author's claim.
The Tiered Royalty Scale
The law sets the royalty in tiers according to the sale price: where the sale price is from 500 to 100 000 GEL — 4%; where it is from 100 000,01 to 400 000 GEL — 4000 GEL plus 3% of the amount above 100 000,01 GEL; where it is from 400 000,01 to 700 000 GEL — 13000 GEL plus 1% of the amount above 400 000,01 GEL; where it is from 700 000,01 to 1 000 000 GEL — 16000 GEL plus 0,5% of the amount above 700 000,01 GEL; and where the price exceeds 1 000 000 GEL — 17500 GEL plus 0,25% of the amount above 1 000 000 GEL. Each tier is computed separately: the fixed amount of the lower tier is carried up and supplemented by the next tier's percentage, and the royalty resulting from this rule must not exceed 25 000 GEL without payment of taxes. For sellers this means the royalty must be calculated tier by tier rather than on the whole price — an error here translates directly into loss, and the cap discipline matters as much as the percentages.
Collection Through Collective Management and the Seller's Information Duty
Article 20 provides that the royalty is collected through an organization managing property rights on a collective basis, upon whose demand the seller of the work is obliged to submit information about the sales. The author therefore does not have to negotiate directly with each seller: the relationship is steered by the collective-management organization, and the seller's duty to account exists toward that organization. Alienation of the right is prohibited: by law or by will it passes only to the author's heir, for the term of the copyright — the author can neither assign it away nor contract out of it. This combination of collective collection and inalienability protects the author from pressure at the moment of sale, when the bargaining position is weakest, and preserves the royalty for the statutory chain of succession.