Artists Rights Society agrees licensing deal with Samsung
The art on your television just got a paperwork upgrade. The Artists Rights Society has entered a licensing partnership with Samsung, ARTnews reported on 30 September 2026.
The partnership centres on Samsung's Art Store. It is the library built for the company's Frame televisions, sets designed to look like a framed picture on the wall and to display artworks when programmes are not playing. Licensing has a straightforward meaning here. It is formal permission to reproduce and show a work that is still in copyright, with payment flowing to the artist or estate.
Samsung describes that library in broad terms. Its Canadian Frame page says the Art Store offers more than 5,000 selections from well-known artists and institutions, according to Samsung Canada. A Singapore page for the same range says the collection draws on official ties with more than 70 galleries and more than 800 artists, according to Samsung Singapore. Both pages are undated product listings, so they read as background on size rather than news of the new deal.
The listings show the kind of names already in the mix. Samsung's Art Store pages in the United States, Canada and the Levant region include American artist LeRoy Neiman, noted for his bright sporting scenes, among the available artists. Those references come from Samsung US, Samsung Canada and Samsung Levant.
Rights groups exist to handle this exact exchange. They clear uses, collect fees and pass money on, which matters for living artists who rely on reproduction income and for estates managing work after an artist's death. Without that clearance, a television company cannot legally offer a protected picture as a digital display.
For people at home, this is about the wall between box sets. A new licensing line can widen the choice of pictures that can legally appear on the screen in the living room. It also decides who is paid when a bedroom wall becomes a gallery for the evening.
What the published report does not spell out is the small print. No fee, duration or list of covered artists and estates was included in the account of the launch. That leaves the confirmed news simple. A rights body and a television maker have joined forces, against a store that already trades on scale.
