Cal. CIV § 1740

This is the official text of Cal. CIV § 1740, part of California’s Civil Code — covers contracts, property ownership, personal rights, and other general civil obligations between private parties.

Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.

Official statutory text

As used in this title:

(a) “Fine art multiple” or “multiple” for the purposes of this title means any fine print, photograph (positive or negative), sculpture cast, collage, or similar art object produced in more than one copy. Pages or sheets taken from books and magazines and offered for sale or sold as art objects shall be included, but books and magazines shall be excluded.

(b) “Fine print” or “print” means a multiple produced by, but not limited to, engraving, etching, woodcutting, lithography, and serigraphy, and means multiples produced or developed from photographic negatives, or any combination thereof.

(c) “Master” is used in lieu of and has the same meaning as a printing plate, stone, block, screen, photographic negative, or mold or other process as to a sculpture, which contains an image used to produce fine art objects in multiples.

(d) “Artist” means the person who created the image which is contained in, or constitutes, the master or conceived of, and approved the image which is contained in, or constitutes, the master.

(e) Whether a multiple is “signed” or “unsigned” as these terms are used in this title relating to prints and photographs, depends upon whether or not the multiple was autographed by the artist’s own hand, and not by mechanical means, after the multiple was produced, irrespective of whether it was signed or unsigned in the plate.

(f) “Impression” means each individual fine art multiple made by printing, stamping, casting, or any other process.

(g) “Art dealer” means a person who is in the business of dealing, exclusively or nonexclusively, in the fine art multiples to which this title is applicable, or a person who by his or her occupation holds himself or herself out as having knowledge or skill peculiar to these works, or to whom that knowledge or skill may be attributed by his or her employment of an agent or other intermediary who by his or her occupation holds himself or herself out as having that knowledge or skill. The term “art dealer” includes an auctioneer who sells these works at public auction, but excludes persons, not otherwise defined or treated as art dealers herein, who are consignors or principals of auctioneers.

(h) “Limited edition” means fine art multiples produced from a master, all of which are the same image and bear numbers or other markings to denote the limited production thereof to a stated maximum number of multiples, or are otherwise held out as limited to a maximum number of multiples.

(i) “Proofs” means multiples which are the same as, and which are produced from the same master as, the multiples in a limited edition, but which, whether so designated or not, are set aside from and are in addition to the limited edition to which they relate.

(j) “Certificate of authenticity” means a written or printed description of the multiple which is to be sold, exchanged, or consigned by an art dealer. Every certificate shall contain the following statement:

“This is to certify that all information and the statements contained herein are true and correct.”

(k) “Person” means an individual, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, association, or other entity, however organized.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.