Literary Media in Germany

Since 1958 the Verwertungsgesellschaft WORT, a non-profit collecting society, has played a vital role in protecting authors' rights in their works. But collecting royalties poses a formidable challenge in this day and age of rapidfire technological advances and innovations.

"Generally hard up for cash" (Volker C. Dörr): in "Schiller Year" 2005 as in the past, biographers tend to dwell on this, the constant bane of Friedrich Schiller's existence. It seems the poet grappled with a mountain of debts his whole life long. He received a measly one-off fee of 60 Reichstaler (roughly €1,500) for his drama Intrigue and Love, and his publishers, Schwan & Götz, never shared the profits on subsequent editions with the author. His esteemed colleague, Goethe, fared no better: though by 1787 The Sorrows of Young Werther had spawned a score of pirated editions, not a penny of the proceeds ended up in the privy councilor's pockets.

Happily, copyright matters have undergone a sea change since then for authors and publishers. In the days of Schiller and Goethe, intellectual property could be protected, if at all, only within the confines of a principality, leaving no barriers to pirated editions in neighbouring princedoms just a few miles away. Nowadays, copyright transcends all national frontiers.

For the author's protection

In Germany, copyright law guarantees rights holders due compensation for the use of their protected works even if for technical or logistical reasons they've no way of telling where and how those works are being reproduced, republished or rebroadcast.

Actually, it's virtually impossible now – as it was long before the advent of mass media – for individual authors to keep tabs on the use of their intellectual property. That's where copyright collecting societies come in: to protect the rights of copyright holders from third-party infringement. Germany has three such organizations: VG BILD-KUNST for artists, photographers and filmmakers, GEMA for composers and musicians, and VG WORT for authors, translators and journalists.

Royalties for rights holders

VG WORT, headquartered in Munich, was founded in 1958. 20 years later it fused with VG WISSENSCHAFT, responsible for the rights of authors and publishers of scientific works. VG WORT, like other such societies, collects the fees payable by law for every use of intellectual property and passes them on to the copyright holders according to a fixed distribution ratio.

Last year, 2004, VG WORT took in €79.1 million on behalf of some 127,000 authors and 5,700 publishers. Fees are collected from manufacturers of photocopiers – which account for the lion's share (over 35%) – plus copyshops, libraries, video libraries, magazine subscription services and press reviews as well as radio and television broadcasters.

Fighting for their rights

VG WORT is also tasked with gathering information about new forms of exploitation of copyright material. Thanks to technological innovations especially in recent years – the Internet and new digital media – texts can be reproduced and reused more easily and rapidly than ever before. So VG WORT has to adjust its contractual arrangements and distribution scales continually to keep up with the latest technological developments.

What's more, VG WORT points out to the lawgivers loopholes in copyright law. Since 2001 it has been battling in the courts for the imposition of a levy on PCs, plotters, printers and multifunctional digital devices. Though the Munich and Stuttgart regional courts have granted its suit, manufacturers have appealed the ruling, so a final decision has yet to be reached.

Cross-border cooperation

Even though copyright now applies worldwide, each country can only protect a given copyright within its jurisdiction. Hence the necessity of international copyright treaties, the first of which were signed at the end of the 19^th century. Since 1908 the Revised Berne Convention guarantees minimum protection for nationals of any signatory country. The UNESCO-initiated Universal Copyright Convention has been in force in Germany since 1955.

In countries where it has bilateral agreements with associated organizations – e.g. Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, US, France, Norway, Hungary – VG WORT relays revenue from abroad to authors and publishers based in Germany. Its "balance of trade" is positive: VG WORT took in close to €7 million from abroad in 2004, whilst disbursing less than half that sum, €3.3 million, to its foreign partners.

Social responsibility

All its collection efforts notwithstanding, the royalties remain slim pickings at best. For each science book published in 2003 the authors received a lump-sum payment of €380 apiece. But part of the revenue goes to social security organizations for writers. Out of its authors' retirement fund, for example, VG WORT supplements contributions to old-age pensions for freelance writers – a function now performed for young authors by Germany's Künstlersozialkasse, or Artists' Social Welfare Fund. Money from various funds helps authors and publishers – and their surviving dependents – who find themselves in straitened circumstances. For one thing that hasn't changed since Schiller's day is that many an author is "generally hard up for cash".