Create a bot to automatically update the member status of an artist in a collective rights association

Registering copyright status in Wikidata
Copyrights, what a lovely place the world would be without them or at least without the administrative hussle they provide! Through the project Copyclear, an automated tool for determining the copyright status of an object in a database, we have been adding information about the copyrights of artworks and artists to Wikidata through two bots, User:Hannolansbot and User:Lanbot.

This makes it clear for everybody whether a work is in the public domain or still in copyright, and, if this the case, who they need to contact to get permission e.g. relatives, a gallery or a copyright collective. A substantial part of artists is part of these so called copyright collectives (or Collectieve Beheersorganisaties or CBO’s, as they are called in Dutch). By adding the membership id information to Wikidata we make it available to anyone instead of being tucked away in a dark corner of the web.

However, the membership of artists with these CBO’s is fluctuating, sometimes they are no longer a member. So, the membership state is fluid and in order to make the content concerning the membership on Wikidata reliable, we need to check for end dates on the CBO’s website on regular basis.

That’s where we need your help!
We would love to have a bot (we nicknamed it the CBOt), that could go to the artists on wikidata with their member id and with that check the website of these CBO’s whether an artist is still a member, and if not, register the date the membership ended (visited date or of the website or the end date registered at the website of the CBO) as an enddate with the membership in Wikidata.

How would it work (requirements)?
The bot would check items with properties that have a value for Pictoright ID code (P3361) or ADAGP artist ID (P3901).

If no reference value for start date (P580) and/or end date (P582) the bot would follow the links to the pages of the mentioned CBO’s Pictoright and ADAGP, check if that artist still has a page, or has an end date, and register one as P582 if one is mentioned.

It will also update the copyright owner (P3931) for all the artworks of that artist and change the end date for that property as well if applicable. The code of PictoRight exists of a part that shows for which national organisation the artist is member of.

The frequency with which this should be done is annually at the least, but it would be preferable to run it as often as possible/practical.

For a list of CBO's, please see this Google document

Query with overview IPI abbreviation codes

Overview of all CISAC member organisations

Example of an artist who is a member of Pictoright and have end date & Pictoright ID code registered:
Karel Appel
And
The Discovery, rights represented by Pictoright as copyright owner