Resale right is actually very old. France had it in about 1920. It's in many countries around the world.
Let's say an artist I represent had a work resold in Britain. I have a reciprocal agreement with a collective in Britain that collects resale rights; because we have no reciprocity in our legislation, I can't collect the right from the collective in Britain. That's one of the problems.
If you look at the market for resale in Canada, it's rather large. Last November there were three auction sales that dealt with living artists' works. The sales were almost $2 million. If the resale right had been 5%, the artists would have received about $100,000 among them. There weren't a lot of artists. There were probably about 20 or so.
I mean, the market for contemporary art and the resale of contemporary art is becoming much bigger in Canada than it used to be. The artists, of course, are living longer, so people need to benefit from the resale of their works.