Dear ASAI Members and Colleagues,
The American Society of Illustrators Partnership (ASIP) and American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI) are inviting all published illustrators to join the Artists Rights Society (ARS) as an illustrator Member.
There is NO FEE for this, and as an ARS member illustrator, you can then be assimilated into a global system that will allow you to receive licensing fees for otherwise unidentified uses of your work.
This global system (called IPI for Interested Party Information) assigns artists, musicians and other authors a unique legal identity tag called an IPI Number. If you are an illustrator, this will allow you to make claims for licensing fees for the use of your work currently being collected under international blanket licenses.
A blanket license is a license that gives a user the right to use any work from a body of collective works where generic royalties (similar to jukebox money) can be collected and distributed to rights holders only through internationally established collecting societies.
In the US, IPI numbers can only be obtained for you by the Artists Rights Society. ARS is the fine art collecting society that represents over 40,000 fine artists, including the estates of Picasso, Matisse, Saul Steinberg and others.
Through the efforts of the American Society of Illustrators Partnership (ASIP), ARS has now agreed to represent illustrators. You must be a published artist – with at least one published piece to your credit – to enter into this agreement. ASAI members, who have been chosen in any of the AIP Catalogues, would qualify, and once in the system would be able to realize any royalties that might accrue from the world-wide distribution or placement of the physical or digital versions of any of ASAI catalogues.
There is no fee for membership and you need only supply ARS with your name and birth date (and death date in the case of estates) and your contact information. These dates are necessary to distinguish between two artists with the same name.
An artist’s IPI Number is the code for a name or pseudonym related to a person or a legal entity. For example,
Pablo Picasso has the IP Base Number I-001068130-6. Or one entity can have several names: the late musical artist Prince has three IPI-codes: 00045620792 (Nelson Prince Rogers), 00052210040 (Prince) and 00334284961 (Nelson Prince R).
Musicians, fine artists and writers have been in the IPI system for years. Collecting societies require these identity numbers in order to pay royalties to the proper rights holders and to avoid fraudulent claims.
The IPI system and database are administered by the Swiss copyright society SUISA (the Swiss Cooperative Society for Authors and Publishers) in accordance with guidelines and standards established by CISAC (The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers).
To join ARS as an Illustrator Member, please download the simple pdf Member Agreement from the dedicated ARS website. Then fill out the form, listing all names, pseudonyms, and other variations under which your work is credited and sign it. You may sign the agreement with a digital signature or a traditional signature.
Please return one copy to ARS via email: members@arsny.com or via postal mail: Artists Rights Society, 65 Bleecker St, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10012. ARS will return a counter-signed agree-ment to you and will then send you a W-9 form to fill out for any payments due you.
This Agreement is for blanket licensing fees only, and will not in any way preclude or limit you from exclusive licensing of your works by any other means. For more information please see these Frequently Asked Questions.
Please take a few minutes to review the sites and materials, to take advantage of this artist advocacy program; which benefits you, ASAI, and the eleven other groups that comprise ASIP.
Frank M. Costantino, ASAI Co-Founder
V.P. and Charter Member, ASIP
