Artist gets copyright appeal
An artist has been granted the right to appeal against a precedentsetting court decision that gave her ex-husband joint ownership of the copyright to her work.
Sirpa Elise Alalaakkola’s concerns about losing her personal brand and the ramifications of the High Court decision were shared by many in the art community, and she has now won the right to challenge it.
Justice Andru Isac, who ruled in September the copyright of the art created during Alalaakkola’s 20-year marriage to Paul Palmer amounts to relationship property, has now granted her leave to appeal.
Alalaakkola’s lawyer, Clive Elliott QC, has confirmed they will file an appeal in the next few weeks, and he expected it to be heard in the middle of next year.
The ‘‘important case’’ had drawn the attention of many in the art community, he said.
Justice Isac’s latest judgment ruled that Alalaakkola would have to pay the existing court costs instead of Palmer, but Elliott said ‘‘that will be reversed if we are successful in the appeal’’.
Justice Isac’s November 17 judgment says the appeal will address whether copyright is ‘‘property’’ for the purposes of the Property (Relationships) Act, and how it should be classified in the act. ‘‘There is clearly a live – and novel – question concerning the interaction of the Property (Relationships) Act and the Copyright Act.’’
The appeal ‘‘raises a question of law capable of serious argument and . . . involves a public or private interest of sufficient importance to outweigh the cost and delay of the further appeal’’.
‘‘As far as I can tell, this has not been the subject of judicial consideration in this country before,’’ Justice Isac said.
‘‘The resolution of the issue will also have consequences for the wider creative community and indeed New Zealand’s property relationship law.’’
Elliott’s grounds for appeal included that Justice Isac’s decision gave undue preference or weight to the Property (Relationships) Act over the Copyright Act 1994, and that he erred in not giving sufficient weight to the fact painting was an intensely personal skill. He also felt Justice Isac’s findings were ‘‘contrary to the clean-break principle’’, where neither party had any continuing financial claim on the other.
Palmer’s lawyer Brian Fletcher ‘‘unsurprisingly rejects these grounds of appeal’’, but submitted that if leave was granted, the grounds of appeal should be ‘‘distilled’’ to whether copyright in artistic works produced during the marriage was ‘‘property’’ in terms of the Property (Relationships) Act.
‘‘If it is property as defined, then on the facts of this marriage is it relationship property or separate property?’’
Palmer told The Press it was Alalaakkola’s right to appeal, ‘‘and good luck’’. ‘‘The chance of it going to appeal was incredibly high because it does affect other people, not just Sirpa and I,’’ he said.