If you employ a builder to lay a path across your garden, he
charges a one-off fee for the job and that’s that. He doesn’t expect to get
paid another one every time you walk on it. Similarly, if a painter or sculptor
produces a work, they sell it once and that’s that. They don’t expect to get a
further payment every time it changes hands.
So why is it that photographers, authors and musicians –
those whose work just happens to exist in a form that is endlessly repeatable –
expect to get paid every time it’s used? Is it right, for example, that an
author can spend a few months or a year writing a best selling novel, and then
live off the royalties for the rest of his or her life, while the farmer, the
coalminer, the bricklayer etc, has to work eight hours a day, five days a week
for two thirds of a lifetime in order to survive? Why does the principle ‘a fair
days work for a fair days pay’ apply to most people, while the photographers,
musicians and authors believe themselves to be entitled to special treatment?
When I was a landscape photographer my major client was the publishing
division of the AA. It was understood from the outset that a single fee – and it
was a very respectable one – would be paid for commissioned work, and then
ownership of the pictures would be theirs. Similarly, they would sometimes buy
odd pictures from my own stock, again for a one-off fee. They’re still using
pictures I took for them twenty years ago and I get no payment. Why should I?
They paid me to do the work. Why should I expect any more? Doesn’t that seem
reasonable? And doesn’t it further seem reasonable that creative work should be
free for everyone to enjoy, as long as the person who created it was suitably
recompensed for their efforts and is able to survive in the same way that the
farmer, the coalminer and the bricklayer survives?
I do agree that working as a freelance in a creative field
is insecure, so maybe you need to be paid a bit more than an employed person
for the same amount of work, simply to cover the inevitable lean periods. But
that’s as far as it should go. When I see bands and artists making millions
from the sales of just one album, and then still getting indignantly possessive
over the posting of a track on YouTube, it pisses me off right royally.
‘Content owner has disabled embedding.’ Well, of course he
has. It’s that kind of world.
2 comments:
"an author can spend a few months or a year writing a best selling novel, and then live off the royalties for the rest of his or her life"
Pssh, yeah. Maybe if you're Stephen King you can.
I'm not a big fan of the way these industries crack down on online streaming, but the creators NEED these royalties to LIVE on in order to do what they do full-time.
As you said, it takes years to write a novel, it's not a guaranteed, stable income like a day job is, and if you ARE successful, a big chunk of the proceeds go to the publisher (or record company).
Don't portray creators as being greedy for wanting royalties, it's NOT the same. Unless you're one of the famous few, it's an incredibly difficult way to make a living.
I made the point that I don't wholly object to royalties on principle. I still get a few small cheques myself from my one time work as a freelance photographer. But there's a line to be drawn. Let me reiterate two points:
1) Some creators, like fine artists and sculptors don't get royalties. They make a work, then sell it for a fee.
2) There are plenty of other self-employed people who also live insecure lives, but the self-employed joiner doesn't get a fee every time somebody opens the garden gate he fitted.
I believe that creative people should be able to make a living from their skills. What bugs me are millionnaire authors and music stars who think they have some moral right to keep getting paid over and over again, even when they've already got more money than they can ever hope to spend, and are prepared to prevent the poorer members of society enjoying their work.
The industries behind the stars are a different matter. They're largely composed of a bunch of fat, greedy bastards getting ever fatter on the back of something they didn't even create.
And can I just add that a lot of the fiction I wrote between 2003-2010 has been published, and I never got more than a small, one-off fee for any of it. Now it's all available on my other blog for anybody with a computer to read free of charge - because that's what I belive in. Creative work can be a commodity, but it's also a hell of a lot more. It's one of the things that connect us as a species, and shouldn't be there just to make a few greedy people fat.
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