Round table on author's rights in Tallinn, Estonia

What does Europe have in common concerning authors´ rights, copyright, lending rights and reprography? These questions were raised by the President of the Estonian Writers Union, Mr. Mati Sirkel, at a conference sponsored by the European Commission with invited guests from Sweden, Norway, UK, Germany, Latvia and Lithuania in the Writers House in Tallinn on May 30-31. The conference was dedicated to the European Congress of Writers (EWC) that was founded 25 years ago and that now consists of some 50 writers organizations from the whole European Continent. The vice President Maureen Duffy, UK, and the energetic secretary Lore Shulz-Wild, Germany, were representing this important organization.

Not surprisingly Sweden and Norway could present the best-developed Public Lending Rights (PLR) followed by UK and Germany. In Sweden more than 100 million books are being lent out freely from the Public Libraries and for every loan the Swedish state pays a fee to the writer, a fee that is negotiated between the Swedish government and the Swedish Writers union, the Photographers Union and the Cartoonists Union.

Half of the money goes out as direct compensation to the author and half of it is being invested in a solidarity foundation for scholarships or various kinds. Every year about 200 professional writers, translators and photographers receive an income guarantee of some 150.000 SEK (15.000 USD). Of course many writers in the world envy the Swedish writers this privilege.

But it was interesting to note that the new thoughts and ideas of an improved cultural policy order are today being proposed by Estonia and Lithuania - two new states seeking for a cultural identity in a new Europe. Especially Estonia - represented by the host Mati Sirkel - presented a bright and inspiring proposal: a law that would guarantee a basic economy for all authors and freelancers in the cultural field.

The idea is that all creative unions in Estonia should register themselves to the Ministry of Culture and if they meet with certain preconditions be accepted as receivers of a state grant that would guarantee their members at least 1/5th of an average salary. As there are about 3500 professional cultural workers in Estonia the costs for such a reform would be within the limits of a realistic budget. The proposal has now been presented to the Minister of Culture. If accepted it will be passed on to the Estonian Parliament for decision.

Other ideas that were discussed during this blessed summer day in Tallinn was the introduction of a system of "Domain Public Payant" - which means that there should be a levy on the use of old and free artistic works, our cultural heritage. Today all creative works older than 70 years are free to be exploited by different producers such as publishers, theatre groups, orchestras etc. but not one cent is given to the living creative generations. Wouldn't it be a nice gesture that some few present of the money that our dead colleagues produce were passed on to us who continue their work? In Sweden we are now discussing the building up of a fund for social welfare for those artistic groups that lack pensions because they were freelancers.

A major contribution to strengthen the copyright issue has been achieved in Germany. By sharpening the copyright law the creative unions have been given new possibilities to negotiate with their counterparts. Even if the law became somewhat softer than the original idea it has certainly an impact upon future negotiations between the creative unions and their counterparts also in other countries. The law has been heartily welcomed by the creative unions in Sweden where we also need to improve our negotiating positions.

Finally it was of great interest to compare the literary life around our Baltic Sea, central Europe and UK. In Estonia there are now more than 400 (!) individual publishers but only 35 ordinary publishing houses. In Latvia a new writers union for young poets have arisen. Sweden and Germany seemed to be the only countries present where Print-on-demand plays a literary role. But also in Russia Print-on-demand is an alternative but unfortunately there were no Russians participating in Tallinn since it was a EU-meeting.

But you could buy beautiful flowers from old Russian women along the street in the centre of town!

Peter Curman