Guidelines

for the use of trade marks and intellectual property rights belonging to Authors Collective Limited, trading as anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction.

Contents

Introduction

anonym’ is the brand used to identify and promote the most federating and inclusive sale of “anonymous” art pieces of our time.

Collectively and individually, the brands anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction (together “anonym’”) are used to refer to the most comprehensive and dynamic global art sale initiative, bringing together the art world and inviting the art markets across all categories to join and celebrate the absolute value of art via a wide-ranging offering of “anonymous” art.

Authors Collective Limited owns extensive rights in and to the anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction brands, including the right to commercially exploit them worldwide.

This includes:

i) trade marks, used and/or registered in the UK, EU and internationally in connection with a wide range of goods and services; and

ii) other intellectual property rights.

We offer our promoters, anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction event participants, satellite event collaborators, title partners, global partners, suppliers and licensees the rights to use our intellectual property rights and associate themselves with our brand and we take great care to protect the reputation of our brand by ensuring the proper use of our trade marks and associated intellectual property rights.

As a rule our trade marks cannot be used by third parties without a specific licence or permission from us.

However certain trade marks can be used editorially and by other Stakeholders in the art world.

“Stakeholders” in this context mean individuals, groups or collectives including for example auction houses, art galleries, art online platforms, art collectors, art curators, art brokers, art advisors, art centres, art newspapers, art magazines, art schools, art departments, art professors, art teachers, business schools, business professors, and not for profit institutions such as Museums and other art institutions. For the purposes of these guidelines Stakeholders will be those who follow anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction events and are active in supporting the art world and art auctions but without doing so in a materially commercial manner, subject to our discretion.

A materially commercial manner may include using the anonym’ Rights:

  • for clickbait purposes to promote commercial offers, promotions or activities either related or unrelated to the anonym’ events;
  • to build traffic and/or following to a website and/or social profiles in order to sell goods or services rather than genuinely provide a service for fellow Stakeholders;
  • for advertising and/or promotional purposes that is excessively repetitive or otherwise intrusive, such as targeted ads directed at a select user base.

These guidelines (which may be updated from time to time) are provided to help you use our trade marks and related intellectual property rights properly and in a clear and consistent way for this purpose.

As it is impossible to provide guidance on all possible uses, we reserve our right to take action against unauthorised uses which we consider to infringe our rights.

Section 1 – Our Marks

The core trade marks and corporate identities of Authors Collective Limited, trading as anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction are listed below. Please note this is not a full list (where we refer to Our Marks in these Guidelines we are referring collectively to the Permitted Word Marks, the Logos, and any other trade marks).

The Logos

anonym’, anonym’art, anonym’art’auction, and the Authors Collective logo

You may not use, for any purpose, in any medium, any of our Logos without an express written licence or permission from Authors Collective Limited.

Permitted Word Marks

Permitted Word Marks include: i) Word Marks; and ii) Event Titles, as listed.

i) Word Marks

  •     anonym’™
  •     anonym’art™
  •     anonym’art’auction™

ii) Event Titles (as of May 2020)

  • ANONYM’ART’AUCTION VIEW
  • ANONYM’ART’AUCTION LIVE
  • ANONYM’ART’AUCTION 2020

As covered in Section 3, we allow the Permitted Word Marks to be used to inform, not to brand.

Section 2 – Other Intellectual Property Rights

In addition to Our Marks, we own or have the exclusive rights to commercially exploit other intellectual property rights used in connection with the anonym’ events.

This includes (but is not limited to) intellectual property rights in:

  • Schedules, Event dates, Results and Timing data;
  • Proprietary and Innovative Sale format;
  • Event Production style and method;
  • Dedicated Anonymous Art categorisation;
  • Valuations and Statistics;
  • Still Images;
  • Audio, Audio Visual, and Live Streamed Content;
  • Official Artworks;
  • Graphics, Assets and Textures;
  • Written Content including articles and news stories used and featured in all our products and services (the “Other Intellectual Property Rights”).

The Other Intellectual Property Rights should not be used without our permission or contrary to these Guidelines.

If you would like to enquire about licensing any of the Other Intellectual Property Rights please contact us at enquiries@authors-collective.com.

Where we refer to the anonym’ Rights we are referring to Our Marks and Other Intellectual Property Rights collectively.

Section 3 – Using Our Permitted Word Marks Editorially

Editorial use

Our Permitted Word Marks can be used editorially to report on and provide information about the anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction events, including being used on front covers of publications / website page so long as the use is to inform or report and not to brand the publications /website page and provided that such use does not create any unauthorised association or false affiliation between the Authors Collective, anonym’, anonym’art, anonym’art’auction and third party businesses, brands, products and/or services.

The following guidelines will help to ensure that you use the Permitted Word Marks properly in editorial copy.

Appearance

Event Titles should always be written in BLOCK CAPITALS. The ™ symbol is not required.

In almost every circumstance e.g. in press releases, advertising materials, strap lines, titles, headlines of news and auction reports and website menus, where the surrounding text is written in Sentence case, Word Marks should be either:

  •     written in Title Case followed by the ™ symbol; or
  •     in BLOCK CAPITALS.

If all the surrounding text is written in BLOCK CAPITALS, then Word Marks should be written in BLOCK CAPITALS, followed by the ™ symbol, to differentiate them from the rest of the text.

As an exception to the above guideline, in editorial copy e.g. body of text, news and auction reports, Word Marks should still be written in Title Case or BLOCK CAPITALS, to identify use of a trade mark but the ™ symbol is not mandatory.

Permitted Word Marks should not be stylised or written in a font style that is different to the surrounding text.

Our corporate identity (our company names) should always be written in Title Case. The ™ symbol is not required.

Grammar

Word Marks should be used as attributive modifiers i.e. they should be used to modify a noun for example “anonym’ art sale”, “anonym’ auction”.

Word Marks should not be used as nouns. For example “anonym’ was great this year” should be amended to “the anonym’ auction was great this year”; “anonym’art’auction was great this year” should be amended to “the anonym’art’auction live event was great this year”.

Word Marks should never be used in the possessive form. For example “anonym’s results”.

Section 4 – Other uses of anonym’ Rights

We want to support the art world and its wide array of stakeholders and are committed to creating a passionate, creative and inclusive environment with our anonym’ initiatives and growing community. This section of our guidelines provides additional guidance on what we allow.  We endeavour to take a more relaxed approach when Stakeholders engage in activities concerning anonym’ Rights.

That being said, you must comply with the following Fundamental Principles at all times as set out below:

The Fundamental Principles

Whenever using any of the anonym’ Rights in compliance with these guidelines you must:

  • be clear that what you are doing is not official, approved or endorsed by us or associated or connected with us;
  • be respectful to the anonym’ Rights;
  • not be unlawful, deceptive, obscene, harmful or disparaging;
  • not use our Logos;
  • not integrate Our Marks into any other marks and sufficiently differentiate the use of Our Marks from other marks;

The other uses of anonym’ Rights identified below focus on areas where Stakeholders and the art community commonly have questions. If you have additional queries or would like guidance on something that is not covered here then please do let us know at enquiries@authors-collective.com.

Internet

As noted above, our Permitted Word Marks can be used editorially on a website so long as the use is to inform or report and not to brand the website.

If the website is dedicated to the ANONYM’ART’AUCTION 2020 and is unofficial, such as Stakeholder use, the website should contain the following disclaimer:

This website is unofficial and is not associated in any way with Authors Collective Limited. anonym’, anonym’art, anonym’art’auction, ANONYM’ART’AUCTION 2020 and related marks are trade marks of Authors Collective Limited.

The disclaimer should be inserted in the footer of the landing and/or home page of the website.

Linking to anonym-art-auction.com

Linking to the official anonym’ website www.anonym-art-auction.com is permitted so long as such use does not create any unauthorised association between the Authors Collective Limited and their brands, including but not limited to anonym’, anonym’art, anonym’art’auction, and any third party or its products or services.

The name of our website must be used in such links, i.e. www.anonym-art-auction.com, but none of our Logos may be used.

Domain names

Our Permitted Word Marks cannot be incorporated into or registered as domain names for commercialised websites. Use of our Permitted Word Marks in domain names for unlawful and deceptive purposes such as cybersquatting and typosquatting will not be tolerated.

Use within domain names for non-commercialised websites (e.g. Stakeholders sites or news sites) may be tolerated at our discretion.

Our Permitted Word Marks may be used after a domain name as a sub-domain but not as a prefix name so long as the use does not make any unauthorised association with third parties. For example,www.auction-results.com/anonym is acceptable, www.anonym.auctionresults.com is not.

Social media and mobile services

Social media platforms and mobile services are an important way for the worldwide art community to interact with one another and with anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction.

Our Permitted Word Marks can be used editorially for non-commercial purposes on social media platforms and on mobile services so long as the use is to inform or report and not to brand.

Non-stylised use of Permitted Word Marks within social media handles, profile names, biographies for non-commercialised accounts (e.g. stakeholders or news accounts) may be tolerated at our discretion.

Subject to our discretion, a company or business that has an account on a social media platform will generally be using that account commercially to promote its goods/services and so will not be considered a non-commercial account by us.

Tweeting, regramming and sharing of official anonym’, anonym’art or anonym’art’auction content is permitted according to the normal function of the relevant social media platforms provided that the content is embedded and links back to the actual source and such use does not create any unauthorised official association with Authors Collective Limited.

Our Permitted Word Marks may be used for non-commercial social media hashtags for example #anonym, #anonymart, #anonymartauction, #anonymauction, #anonym2020, #anonym27072020, #anonymlive.

Audio, Audio Visual and Live Streaming Content, Still Images and Screenshots

Our Audio, Audio Visual and Live Streaming Content cannot be used.

Our Permitted Word Marks may be used editorially for non-commercial videos about anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction so long as the use is to inform and report and not to brand. For example, Permitted Word Marks should not be used as first words for any Stakeholder videos that are created, e.g. a Stakeholder video entitled “How did anonym’art’auction break all records for online sales in History?” is acceptable; “The anonym’ Vlog: How did anonym’art’auction break all records for online sales in History?” is not.

All rights in still images/ photos / screenshots are the property of their respective owners which in certain cases may be Authors Collective Limited.  Such content should not be reproduced without the consent of the relevant third party rights holder unless such use is in accordance with applicable fair use or fair dealing laws.

Other Intellectual Property Rights (as defined above) cannot be used in videos unless such use falls under applicable fair use or fair dealing laws and is in compliance with these guidelines e.g. GIFs and Memes are acceptable provided they do not infringe applicable laws and/or these guidelines.

While user generated videos and photographs that relate to anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction for non- commercial purposes are generally acceptable, anonym’ event-related registration terms may govern recording Audio and Audio Visual Content at anonym’ events and may prohibit such use if the intended purpose is materially commercial rather than genuinely informatory. You should review the terms and conditions of any registration application with Authors Collective Limited or with our selected partners you enter to participate in anonym’ events and adhere to the rules contained therein.

Games

Our Permitted Word Marks cannot be used to brand any game. Other Intellectual Property Rights cannot be used in third party games unless such use falls under fair use or fair dealing laws.

Video and Live Streaming

Authors Collective Limited, trading as anonym’art’auction runs various official video and live streaming channels. The anonym’ Rights cannot be used in connection with any other video or live streaming channels – including branding of any unofficial art event, unapproved satellite event or Stakeholder initiative or business – without permission from us.

Apps

Our Permitted Word Marks can be used editorially for non-commercial purposes in relation to apps so long as the use is to inform or report and not to brand, i.e. in the paragraphs of accompanying text to describe the app.

Other Intellectual Property Rights cannot be used in apps unless such use falls under applicable fair use or fair dealing laws and is in compliance with these guidelines. For further guidance on timing data please see Results and Valuation Data category below.

Results and Valuation Data

Our Results and Valuation Data is protected by copyright and database rights. Individual pieces of the data can be used incidentally within editorial material to genuinely inform, with permission of participant third parties if applicable, but substantial pieces of the data may not be reproduced or used commercially.

Auctions

Our Permitted Word Marks, including variants and derivatives, as well as intellectual property rights pertaining to our proprietary event format, production, as well as categorisation of “anonymous” art, cannot be used to brand any other auctions or global art sale event.

Merchandise

You cannot use the anonym’ Rights in respect of your own merchandise in any way.

Endorsement or sponsorship

The anonym’ Rights cannot be used in any manner, in any medium, that implies Authors Collective Limited, anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction affiliation with or endorsement, sponsorship, support of any third party or their products or services.

They cannot be used in conjunction with an unauthorised third party’s brand or logo.

Advertisements and Promotions

The anonym’ Rights cannot be used in advertisements or commercials so as to create an unauthorised association between Authors Collective Limited, anonym’, anonym’art and anonym’art’auction and a third party or their products or services. For example, in advertorials.

Commercial use

Our Marks cannot be used on or in relation to any goods / services provided for sale / promotional giveaways without an express licence from Authors Collective Limited. This includes but is not limited to the manufacturing, distributing and promoting of goods or services in the art world.

Company name, product name, trade mark

Our Marks cannot be used or registered as part of a company name, trade name, product name or service name, nor can they be used or registered in any trade mark or service mark. 

Variations

Our Marks, including variants, misspellings and derivatives, cannot be incorporated into logos, composite logos, website icons, or used to create a brand identity, or any competing event or initiative in the global art market.

Section 5 – Need more help?

For more help and information please contact enquiries@authors-collective.com