Tonight many drunk screenwriters on the streets, and in Leiden some very happy older journalists. Lira, the organisation that has to collect money for them from the big, wealthy, and non-paying guys, has won twice. That they already had, of course, but the cable companies did not want to get rid of the gold plating on their luxury yachts. So they ignored the judge's ruling and came up with something themselves which was really laughable.
The writers got into action again. First during the Dutch Film Festival. And last Monday they gathered at the Comedy Theatre, where they presented their secret weapon: Felix Rottenberg. And three days later they are going to pay: the Cayman Islanders, the public broadcasters. The producers. All terrified. Or just found a reasonable alternative. Pechtold will have intervened. Someday we will know.
It is still only and preliminary arrangement, so a lot of water has to flow through the Rhine for Dutch writers to be truly happy. But the start is there. Now to fine-tune the author's contract law, so that the cable companies and broadcasters there don't steal back what they have now lost, and the Netherlands really becomes a fair country for creators.
Because in Leiden, too, a years-long lawsuit by writers against the Regionaal Archief has finally been won. From now on, Leiden has to pay for putting thousands of newspaper pages of stories by freelance journalists online for free. A small matter perhaps, but surely the guys at Blendle should think twice now before shouting again that they don't have to pay freelancers anything for their republication in that fantastic app of theirs. (Really!) Axel Springer of the German tabloid Bild Zeitung must be balking. Suddenly he has to do something left of his three million investment in Alexander Klöpping.
For now, though, we are all happy for the writers.
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