Mr. Valentine. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images.)

Painter Mark Grotjahn, we suspect, is a happy man this morning, after hearing that Dean Valentine, whom he sued to collect unpaid resale royalties last year, has agreed to pay up, and cover a portion of the artist's legal costs, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Under California state law, collectors who resell a work of art for a profit are required to pay five percent of the sale price back to the artist who made the work. Mr. Valentine had argued that the law was unfair to collectors in the state, since no other states have such provisions on the books. (These droit de suite laws are widespread in Europe, though.)

Though the size of the settlement was not released, at the time of the lawsuit, Mr. Grotjahn told the Los Angeles Times that he believed Mr. Valentine had made some $3 million by reselling his work, meaning that the royalties could hover in the range of $150,000.

Thanks to Blouin Artinfo's In the Air column for bringing this item to our attention.