How do copyright and trademark laws affect the production of art? What is the relationship between copyright, trademark, and free speech? How do privacy laws relate to the production of visual imagery? Should artists be granted special status when appropriating material to make artworks? Should artists and corporations be allowed to profit from the labor of original authors and copyright holders? How has the internet and digital technology facilitated appropriation and yet simultaneously increased the likelihood of lawsuits? What are the legal constraints in the archiving, storing, and presentation of digital material?

Clancco.com is a web site launched by Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento and based out of New York City. The aim of Clancco.com is to explore, investigate, and examine the relationship between art and law. With an educational background in art, art theory, and law, Clancco’s expertise lies in the discourses of intellectual property, nonprofit tax-exempt organizations, free speech, and contemporary art. Through articles, interviews, lectures and symposiums, we aim to disseminate this information to art and legal professionals as well as to students from educational institutions at all levels.  Readers are welcome to keep abreast of such issues here and participate in the ongoing dialogue regarding these problematics.

Increasingly, more and more artists are becoming aware of not only the legal perils that accompany art making and appropriation strategies, but more importantly of their very own property rights to the work they produce. They are becoming aware of the differences between title to their work and title to their copyright; to the fact that their intellectual property right may be used to obtain financial loans as well as income in perpetuity; to the fact that the judges, lawmakers, and lawyers do not necessarily define art in conjunction with art history and art theory. Clancco.com was born with these questions in mind, and with a desire to disseminate its findings regarding these and other issues to the larger global community.

For more information on Clancco and its mission, please contact Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento at sergio_sarmiento|at|clancco.com. To see the places where Clancco’s work has been presented, please view Clancco’s Bibliography here.