Afgelopen maandag en dinsdag (21 en 22 april 2008) vond in de Openbare Bibliotheek in Amsterdam een internationaal symposium plaats over auteursrecht in de eeuw van het internet. Het was een evenement georganiseerd in het kader van Amsterdam Wereld Boekenstad, een initiatief van Unesco, de culturele afdeling van de Verenigde Naties, dat een jaar lang voor activiteiten en manifestaties zal zorgen. Hieronder staat de tekst van de toespraak die ik hield in de zogenaamde Author’s Session van het middagprogramma van de eerste dag. De titel waarover ik gevraagd was te spreken luidde:
WHAT COPYRIGHT MEANS TO ME.
Ladies and gentlemen:
Once upon a first time. There was a first time I received not a bottle of wine, not a gift certificate from a bookstore, but cold hard cash for the publication of something I had written.
I recall it as a joyful moment obviously but part of the joy came from a soure that I felt had better be kept secret. This secrecy did’nt apply to the feeling of triumph that accompanied the publication of my essay on the writings of a french surrealist suicide. My piece had appeared in a top literary review. And ofcourse I had put weeks of my time and serious effort into writing it, fully justifying the modest, no, the meagre sum that landed in my bank account.
This first payment took place after I had spent five years writing two novels, six long and a dozen shorter essays and drawers full of short stories, vignettes, meditations, notes on cinema, literature, art and philosophy. Most of which remained in the drawers of my desk as so many undead creatures. Only some essays, a few short stories and articles had appeared in print, but mostly in magazines I ran myself, together with painters, cinematographers, and musicians; or in newly founded art magazines. They were all publications that could only survive if nobody got paid except for the printer.
What was it exactly I felt at the joyful moment that marked the beginning of my life as a professional writer I thought I ‘d better keep to myself?
What I couldn’t get out of my head was the idea that I had discovered a wonderful trick, a con, an elegant and hugely enjoyable way to outsmart the world of my serious and respectable fellow men toiling away, day in day out, doing very grave and useful and important things, and in that way earning serious money and feeding their families, saving up for holidays, boats and leather couches.
The fact that I had received money for my essay was entirely normal and resulted from sound economical principles, but at the same time I felt I had profited from a very fortunate misunderstanding.
What I thought I ‘d better not tell just anyone was the fact that I would keep on writing my novels, stories and essays even if nobody ever paid me a cent for them.
I would even save up for publication if I would have to pay for it. I had done so for years, mimeographing and later copying what I and my friends had written. Nobody told or asked me to write, nobody was interested in what I was going to write, nobody knew! And I believed I would never live long enough to realise all the plans and projects that I had already lined up.
I thought it astonishing that, demand and scarcity being the factors that created and raised the value of a product, I could earn money writing books and essays that nobody asked for (only my friends and family knew I existed!) And that would not be scarce at all if I could help it: I planned to livethe life of a productive writer.
And so it was for economical reasons I hid my excitement and asthonishment and decided to play along, act as a grown up and put some effort into finding ways to get money for all I was to write anyway.
I hoped I would gradually get better in hiding the feeling of triumph that I had discovered a way to be exempt from work. Because my strong conviction was that writing what I wanted to write could not be considered work. It was something that made life interesting if not bearable.
That was twentytwo years ago. In the meantime I have survived as a writer of fifteen books, among which six novels, a satire, a play, two novellas and collections of stories and essays. I have made a quick estimate of the amount of money publishers have had to pay me during the years and it comes down to roughly fifty thousand euro’s. Mind you, that is over twenty two years, and including the twelve thousand euro’s by a german publishing house for the rights to a german edition of one of my novels.
At an average of two thousand euros a year, to me, as a literary author, the economical principle of copyright can therefore best be decribed as a shining object of wishful thinking, every time a book is published or a reprint announced.
How did I survive? As you might know, the market for literature in the dutch language is rather small and even though the Dutch elite traditionally doesn’t exactly squander its money on the arts (old money is stingy and culturally inhibited, new money spends it on cars, yachts and donations to populist politicians), there is a brittle consensus that government should support the arts and literature and protect diversity, quality and young talent from the cruelty and baseness of the market.
I have been very lucky to receive support in the form of grants or subsidies for my literary work, amounting to a hundred and fifty thousand euro’s in those twenty two years. I have received two literary prizes, bringing me a combined sum of around twelve thousand euro’s.
To provide for myself and my family I have earned the rest of my money by publishing in newspapers, magazines, catalogues of museums and art galleries; giving lectures, being a visiting teacher at art schools and universities, being a guest in radio and television programs and yes, I have to admit, a fair part those activities should unfortunately be characterized as work.
In all those years I know I have been protected by copyright laws, both as a free lance writer and as author of literary books. I have signed book contracts that buzzed with the legal jargon that forms the backdrop of this symposium. And I am grateful it all exists.
But through the years it has become more difficult to earn a living by writing. Newspapers and magazines have trouble competing with electronic media and try desperately to win a younger audience by changing into snappier, more service oriented publications. This means even quality newspapers come to resemble printed television programs. Cutting costs and keeping it light means less room for free lance writers, for stories and essays and all those topics that give literary authors a chance to contribute to newspapers and magazines. Only the bestselling stars of the literary scene are welcome.
Intellectually and artistically I see my books as the desired endproduct, my form of choice. But economically I see them less as an endproduct that I sell for exploitation and hopefully mass reproduction, than as highly sophisticated advertising for the novels, stories and essays I will write in the future. In economic terms, they generate spin off, I count on the multipier effect. I have been invited for lectures, contributions to seminars, symposiums, books and magazines for years after publishing a novel that received good reviews but didn’t sell more than three thousand copies. As an average author I do not live from the revenues of my books, but from the opportunities my reputation offers me.
The heart and soul of that reputation are my books. They are targeted at a small but constant audience; and equally important, at all those editors, organizers, scholars, writers, artists, architects, cinematographers, civil servants I have worked with through the years. My books generate the right kind of attention, they showcase me as a supplier of a very specific type of stories, ideas, interventions and opportunities of collaboration.
The fate of literary works in the public sphere is more and more a matter of commercially driven publicity, supporting a bookmarket that more and more resembles the economic system of the supermarket franchise. It all comes down to logistics, mass marketing, chain retail, small revenues from huge volumes. There are more books published than ever before, but most money is earned by fewer and fewer titles.
It is increasingly difficult for publishers to publish authors that do not produce bestselling titles. Costs are growing, competition increases and it is harder every year to get good and serious publicity for all those titles that do not, by chance or by their nature, receive mass interest in media and shops. My books have an increasingly harder time to find their audience.
This economic situation means that authors like myself should rely on the institution of copyright, but are at the same time its hostage. If my chances of being able to live and write my future work depend on my reputation and the very specialised attention it attracts, and the spin offs it generates, than it is more important that my work is widely known and can be read, than if I sell three thousand instead of ten thousand copies.
The interests of writer and publisher do not coincide anymore at the moment the author thinks it smarter to give away parts of his work for free on the internet, on cleverly chosen sites, at the right moment. Just to connect to his readers in the right context, on the right topic, to direct their attention to his books. When he finds the economic grind literary publishing finds itself in has become an obstacle between his work and its audience, between his reputation and his future work.
Publishers and writers should develop a radically new way of jointly earning money from everything an author writes, lectures, peforms or says in public. Copyright laws should be adjusted accordingly so that which is not work in what authors write, and that which is not trade in what literary publishers publish, that which is not merchandise in the books readers buy, can bloom.
There you have the reason why I think this symposium on copyrights is the right occasion to share the secret source of the joy I felt when I was paid for my writing for the first time twenty two years ago.
Dirk van Weelden 2008
