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msknight

Michelle's corner

Michelle Knight. Writer, photographer, programmer, truck driver and general, all round nut case. Life is a journey and that's what this blog will probably end up being. Let's see where we go, eh? ;-)

Currently reading

Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics
Dalai Lama XIV, Ian Coghlan
Progress: 23/433 pages

A one off, or the start of more change?

As the earnings for authors drops to an incredible low... lower even than the living wage... a row has led to Oxford Literary Festival agreeing to pay authors who have previously effectively worked for nothing - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/29/oxford-literary-festival-agrees-to-pay-authors-ending-work-for-nothing-row

 

Some people's viewpoints are concerning...

However, the precedent is already worrying other festival organisers. Cathy Moore, director of Cambridge festival, which has just hosted 35 events over a weekend, said they had various policies on author pay, such as not paying local writers but offering them complementary tickets to other events, but paying debut authors “because I think they need it.” Of the 28 authors eligible for payment over the weekend, 16 had requested it.

 

Given the current returns, ALL authors need payment for work, not just debut authors. And they shouldn't have to request it, either. If they're eligible, it should be given.

 

The attitude of a small minority on the internet, was that creativity should be given free. Not just writing, but music and all the other fields as well. As I've been on the World Wide Waste of time for more than twenty years, I've seen that attitude grow and start to leak out in to general society. As finances changed and people have had less money to spend, that attitude has increased.

 

Now we've seen it leak out in to organisations, that expect the very creativity that it trades on, to be content with a few crumbs of low quality publicity. YouTube and the music industry is another case in point; with YouTube happy to just pirate the music of musicians anyway, because it knows that the musicians would just end up playing DMCA whack-a-mole with videos.

 

These are concerning times for us all. The trickle-down economic philosophy doesn't work because the rich are keeping hold of the money. The most worrying thing for me, is that this has gone well beyond the attitude of the individual, but now forms the basis of commercial business dealings, such as that of Amazon and others.

 

I'm glad I'm not making my living from this crazy creative world.