New California Bill to effect all artists in California for sold autograph items.

Anthony Beanes
-Director

In a recent story covered by teleread.org, a bill was passed called, " Collectibles: sale of autographed memorabilia". This bill was introduced to prevent anyone for trying to do forging mills, and reap the benefits of selling license material under a copied autograph. While the intent is good, the details of the bill is rather vague in regards to what materials are autographed, and sold. Link the bill is below if you wish to read the entire bill.

AB-1570 Collectibles Bill

How this bill effects cosplayers, and artist alike in California, is that every autographed item that is sold for 5$ or more must be have a certificate of authentication, (COA), for each sold autographed item. The most important detail in the bill is specifically article 7, and 8.  

(7) Indicate whether the item was autographed in the presence of the dealer and specify the date and location of, and the name of a witness to, the autograph signing.
(8) Indicate whether the item was obtained or purchased from a third party. If so, indicate the name and address of this third party.

Basically, if your item was sold through another company, that company must include their business location, and name. On top of that, this also means that if the item is autographed, the artist that is selling the sold item must keep a record of the date, location, and have someone with you as a witness of the time of the autograph. The real question now for all of California conventions is, will this be incorporated into artist alley rules alongside getting a sellers permit to sell at conventions. We have reached out to several conventions for their comments on this bill, and how it would affect their artist alley procedure. Also we have reached out to Democratic California Representative Jim Frazer for comment on this bill, as he was one of the Representative that voted for the bill.

This bill won't be enforce in California until the 1st of January of next year. With the way this bill is set up right now, this will affect all artists, and cosplayers who sell any form of artwork that is autographed. There are several resources online, to have any artwork that has been autographed that offer COA for free, and a link will be provided below to begin the process. We will update this story as this continues on.

Sources:
New California law will make it harder to sell autographed books, art
AB-1570 Collectibles Bill
How to Make a Certificate of Authenticity for Artwork