Observatory on Graphic Illustration
THE CHALLENGES OF THE DIGITAL ERA

Observatory on Graphic Illustration
THE CHALLENGES OF THE DIGITAL ERA
2009-2010 Report

A report written by the Observatory’s Commission of Professionals, composed by Horacio Altuna, Pablo Amargo, Elisa Arguilé, Arnal Ballester, Ulises Culebro, Ricardo Esteban, Manuel Estrada, Isidro Ferrer, Forges, Miguel Gallardo, Pablo Martínez, Max, Albert Monteys, Elena Odriozola, Javier Olivares, Carlos Ortín, Miguelanxo Prado, Mariona Sardà, Rosa Serrano and Javier Zabala.

Published by FADIP (Spanish Federation of Associations of Professional Illustrators)

Postal address: Mayor 4, planta 4.ª, oficina 6, 28013 Madrid, Spain
info@ fadip.org
www.fadip.org

Coordination and text edition: Henrique Torreiro
English translation: Miguel Fernández Garrido (CG Traducciones)
Design for e-book formats: Lluís Miquel Abián

© FADIP, for this edition

First published in December, 2010

The reproduction of excerpts of this document is permitted, as long as the source is mentioned. The publishers will be grateful for the communication of such reproductions.

INTRODUCTION

The Observatory on Graphic Illustration 2008 Report contributed to an analysis of the state of affairs within the diverse professional fields of illustration in Spain. It was presented to the general public, professionals and the press at events held in Barcelona, Madrid, the Basque Country, Santiago de Compostela and Valencia, was sent to institutions related to the printed media (Spanish Newspaper Publishers Association) and publicists (Association of Spanish Advertising Agencies) and presentation meetings were also held with VEGAP, the Ministry of Culture’s Sub Department General for the Promotion of the Book, Reading and Spanish Letters, the Ministry of Education’s Sub Department of Academic Affairs as well as with the Federation of Publishers’ Guilds of Spain (FGEE). While it would be naïve to expect tangible changes through these means alone, the outcome of these meetings (held with members of FADIP and the Commission of Professionals) leads us to believe that the Observatory is beginning to open doors that until now seemed closed, and this may translate into medium-term changes, small as yet but of interest to the profession. However, it is also evident that a lot more work needs to be undertaken with due diligence from this platform, so that the necessary search for objective information, and its subsequent analysis, can be correctly combined with on-going contact with the different sectors that were pointed out at the end of the Observatory’s first Report: clients, institutions and professional illustrators.

As stated in the introduction of the 2008 Report, it is the Observatory’s policy to serve as a “detection system”, seeking to carry out “an objective study of the fundamental changes taking place in the world of communication which affect the relations between professional illustrators and the media”. If anything is affecting illustrators at present it is the introduction of digital media, as well as globalization (in many cases linked to this digitization process).

The customary process of professional updating is indispensable nowadays, not only to become acquainted with a set of technical questions that can become essential for the creative development of their work (from the most basic computer tools to knowledge of the principles of animation or the implications of augmented reality), but also the details surrounding the sectors for which they work, in fields that, despite the traditional differentiation, nowadays merge into each other more and more, as we will see.

In the course of a few years the cultural industries have changed unrecognizably. Considering that knowing the state of play is indispensable for understanding how the illustrator’s trade is transforming, we have specifically focused this new report on a description of outlooks and how they affect creators in general. Using this as the starting point, we will be able to describe — or at least suggest — lines of action specifically conceived for professional illustrators, while stressing the need for the union of authors from all disciplines and all nations when dealing with a reality that is continuously outgrowing the fields in which collecting societies and associations have operated.

Once again, this Report is endorsed by the twenty members of the Observatory’s Commission of Professionals whose curricula vitae are attached, and is accompanied by a series of annexes: commentaries to two actual contracts (documents that were sent by FADIP to the publishing houses proposing said contracts), two articles on the situation of authors and illustrators in the international arena, and one on the teaching of illustration in Spain (which in this specific case has led to initiating negotiations with the Ministry of Education in that regard), and the transcription of a roundtable on authorial rights in the digital media that was held precisely in the context of one of the presentations of the previous Report. [The curricula vitae, annexes and bibliography are included in the Spanish version only]

1. THE MAIN SECTORS IN THIS PROFESSION: AN UPDATE

To approach this Report by following an outline similar to the one in the 2008 Report would contribute little to what has been described there while leaving many of the doubts that were raised unsolved.

The trends described in the aforesaid report are still valid. Thus, in the field of the press, the trend initiated in 2008 has continued in 2009 and the first part of 2010; this trend includes the shutdown of newspapers and editions in the case of free newspapers, a continuing decrease of sales for the rest, and the cost saving policies by means of dismissals and early retirement incentives in every case (the Forum of Journalist Organizations estimated that more than 3200 journalists lost their jobs in 2009 in Spain), as well as the reduction in the fees paid to collaborators (for instance, following the tendency of other newspapers, in 2009 La Vanguardia notified its collaborators — including illustrators, obviously — of a 30% fee cutback). Although the edition of newspapers in the internet is still not profitable in itself, the advertising revenue obtained online has continued to evolve favourably, and campaigns devote a growing percentage of their budget to the internet. Some newspaper editors are already demanding that media outreach measurements take into account not only paper editions, but also the visited internet pages; although right now, the problem is that there is a lack of agreement as to methods for measuring that digital outreach.

International studies, following what is happening in the USA, predict a recovery of the advertising market, but point out that such a recovery will not take place in the field of the printed press. According to journalist and media consultant Antoni Maria Piqué, advertising investment was up to now based on the axiom: “half of the money invested in advertising is useless, but we don’t know which half”; in his own words, however, “today we do know: it is the press’s half”.

There seems to be an agreement in saying that the time of traditional newspapers is over, although that does not necessarily imply their death; what seems to be clear is that nobody will promote any important new project for a printed newspaper any more, the way forward being quite different. The General Survey of Media has recorded a degree of dissemination of the internet in Spain about the middle of 2010 that is on the verge of surpassing that of printed newspapers, which will happen in 2011 if the trend continues unchanged.

The world of advertising is intimately linked to the financial health of the media. As the primary cause of their crisis, due to the decrease of companies’ investment in advertising as a preventive measure against the reported crisis, it also shares their problems, although it faces them first hand and can maximize the advantages of the new media, as opposed to traditional media (for instance, many services previously associated with newspapers, such as classified ads, are today offered for free on websites that have nothing to do with traditional media, and which in turn also work in good measure thanks to advertising). In any case, the concentration of ownership of the media on the one hand, and the convergence of media on the other — journalism, for instance, is more and more indistinguishable in its written, radiocast and audiovisual modes, so everything tends to intermingle — results in advertising and the media still being allies, without there being any reason to see this relationship in danger.

As will be later analyzed, companies in the field of journalism show considerable zeal regarding the protection of their contents from use by other companies. On June 7th 2010, the Madrid Declaration was published — media associations demanded in it that the European Union determinedly prosecute aggregators and websites that use their work without permission. Shortly afterwards, however, the Association of Madrid Journalists allowed that this Declaration “very nearly foundered because of some editors’ refusal to include the recognition of journalists’ authorial rights in the text”. In spite of this, the practice of publishing companies continues to be trying to reuse the work of all their collaborators, by any means possible and from all kinds of platforms, without this entailing any further financial compensation. So much so that, although the majority of illustrators who collaborate with the press have worked without a contract up until now, in the last few months some companies have started to require signed documents in which they intend to make firm the terms of this transfer without compensation for all the digital uses of the company’s publications. A case in point is the “Collaboration agreement” offered by the Prisa Group’s company Progresa in which the signee (a collaborator of written or graphic material) guarantees the company not only his/her conformity with the fact that unpublished work will not be remunerated, but also that the accepted work may be published “at any time within the three years following the date of acquisition,” as many times and in as many platforms as deemed necessary.

In the field of book publishing, some exceptional cases of contract upgrade have been recorded (such as the one offered by the Anaya Group’s Edicións Xerais de Galicia registered by AGPI: their contracts include an advance payment independent from the payment of authorial rights, which would thus be calculated from the first copy sold), but large publishing houses continue to use an initial contract model that proves to be abusive in many of its clauses. In the midst of a fall in sales, after being heralded for many years and despite certain passivity on the part of the Spanish publishing industry, the digital book has finally arrived at the marketplace; it was established commercially in 2009 by the best known publishing houses, but also adopted by many of the smaller ones. The publishing world in Spain took note of the figures that were circulating during the Frankfurt Book Fair, according to which it is estimated that by 2018 digital book sales will surpass those of traditional printed books. The distribution policies that were discussed in the 2008 Report, perhaps linked to the effects of the prevailing economic crisis, have resulted in the technical bankruptcy of many small publishing houses, according to rumour within the sector.

In the audiovisual sector, the field of animation has followed the previously mentioned trend; therefore many companies lack the solidity expected from a sector that was assumed to be growing.

The economic crisis has affected the different sectors in various ways, but each one of them had for some time been engulfed in their own internal crisis which is in one way or another related to the advent of the internet and the global changes that this entails. If the media are converging into a single type with many possible manifestations (text, photograph, audio, video), then the publishing houses are also starting to follow suit, as the objective unity of the book is questioned (because, among other things, the possibility of small, specific queries is opened up); with the advent of the digital world, the book also includes audio and video materials (not in the case of novels, for instance, but clearly so in the case of encyclopaedias and reference books, especially in the context of education). Thus, the raison d’être of publishing houses is undergoing a reformulation, and they are asking themselves if their function is to generate services and not just books. All these companies are now linked to what up until now have been called audiovisual companies by virtue of the type of products they can offer, so all media are eventually becoming one single type in which distinctions can be made in terms of themes or the modalities of their contents (information, entertainment, fiction...) and of the pace of production (from the immediacy of newscasts to the long deadlines of film productions).

From now on, then, the digital revolution will have to be taken into account in any future analysis, while accepting the ongoing importance of “analogical” media, which will continue for years to come. This means, for everybody, either a fresh start or a start from conventions born out of the traditional media that are not necessarily adequate for the new realities or even a start from other uses that have occurred while lacking a formal agreement in the last few years. Be that as it may, the new rules are yet to be laid down: none of the conventions that are habitual in the internet can be closed to discussion, especially when in the midst of all the changes that are occurring no stability has been reached. Everybody involved in the industries that are affected has a similar level of expertise and a similar amount of information, so that this reality presents itself as a complex one, although none of the affected parts has a substantial head start but for the fact that they can play with the opacity of the information.

This report will highlight the digital book market, because it may be the business model most similar to its analogical precursor, and at the same time it works as a starting point towards other options in the digital market.

2. A CURRENT OVERVIEW OF THE DIGITAL MEDIA

In what has been termed “the convergence of the media” different strands of journalism and different cultural products and services merge in the internet into a single medium with different modalities. There exists, on the other hand, a convergence of platforms (e-book, PC, cellular phone, iPod, iPad) which, according to most analysts, end up or will end up being an instrument for accessing internet contents. The incessant influx of devices and gadgets may lead to some confusion in the general impression that the public has regarding the world of the media. There is a real danger that this rapid succession of novelties — each of which will supposedly replace all the previous ones — will give an impression of instability, and even precariousness in the actual application of digital technology in the different industries that have some relation to illustration. However, the process of digitization started much longer ago than one tends to think — the Gutenberg Project was born in 1971 — and it has become an unstoppable process; the illustrator cannot turn his/her back on a reality that is transforming the media as we know them from top to bottom.

In the publishing sector, the last to join this state of affairs, people have started to pay heed to those voices that said that it might be possible to momentarily avoid the e-book business but not the process of digitization. Changes occur faster and faster and there has been an exponential increase in digital reading habits since the year 2000.

In this apparent state of confusion, it is important to distinguish the method from the concrete form the product takes. If we take the publishing business as an example, the question that should matter to creators is not the electronic book (a device that may in the near future differ from today’s) but the digital book (the content, which is going to be equally important at all times); digitization is an inescapable future, and a policy of looking the other way is untenable. In the same way, in the traditional media as well as in the audiovisual sector the manner of access (traditional or modern) is not going to matter as much as the content.

The electronic book (e-book, e-reader) is one of the current commitments of the great media groups. A massive distribution through the media is sought after, although its acceptance is not expected to be viable outside certain well informed, technology-literate circles. For the time being, it is a useful device for books which have a vast outreach (such as novels or different kinds of bestsellers) but it is not appropriate for technical books or illustrated books in general. Nevertheless, models are constantly being improved, and it is just a matter of time until we get a device that can be considered “definitive”. Such a device would surely be used to access not only books but also newspapers and magazines, music and movies. The “tablet PC” model, in spite of key issues in need of improvement, seems set to become the ideal model, and the optimism with which the arrival of Apple’s iPad has been welcomed may give a clue to the immediate avenues to pursue.

In any case, digital books have been among us for many years (in such popular formats such as HTML, TXT or PDF), and their use is not limited to e-books, but it is also suitable for the screen of any device capable of reading those files. If the illustrated book may so far be the least suited for e-books, this is not so in the case of other screens and this situation may shortly change due to the constant creation of new technologies.

In 2010 the first textbooks in electronic format have been released in Spain. The program Escuela 2.0 (launched in September 2009) is intended to be implemented in a maximum of four years, and one of its key features is the use of PDF books supplemented with animations, videos, etc.

Let us briefly review the general situation of business in the internet in order to be able to understand how this affects creators, and, among them, illustrators.

2.1. Internet business models

The current trends in the internet regarding business models could be roughly divided in two, i.e., the advertising model and the payment model. The first does not yet quite sufficiently cover costs; nevertheless, advertising in the internet is on a steady rise, although the scattering of the media means that the price of advertising is not equivalent to that of its “analogical” counterpart, where there exists a clear pre-eminence among the media (be it on newspaper mastheads, in television channels...); the second model, called payment or micro-payment model, is the one that has caused the most swings in the policies of the internet press in the last few years, and nowadays many of the large papers have joined the trend of paying for information (with noteworthy exceptions such as The Guardian). Generally speaking, there are few business models in the media that belong solely in the advertising or payment categories, and so a mixed system is commonly used, also called “freemium”, as suggested by Chris Anderson in his book Free! The idea is to offer free basic services (free) paid for by advertising, while for more advanced or special services people are charged a fee (premium).

On the subject of authorial or editorial rights protection systems, there seems to be some extent of agreement in the field of the press to use ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol); the Hamburg Declaration (26/6/2009) proposes the use of these metadata which hinder the use of contents by news aggregators. In the new reality opened up by the internet, the so called “right to quote” gets redefined, and search engines or providers of third parties’ contents are thought of as a double-edge sword: they may lead the user to the website that is the source of the content, but they can also straightforwardly give away the content, even if partially. As a matter of fact, the struggle is about earning the users’ loyalty, which aggregators (and search engines in general) destroy when they make visible information that comes from different sources.

As far as the editorial industry is concerned, the predominant trend is the use of DRM (Digital Rights Management, security seal): the electronic book must certify the authorial and editorial rights. The concept of ‘copy’ tends to disappear, because the DRM seeks to limit the mode of access to the book as well as the capacity to print it, loan it, etc. The standard DRM for the ePub format — other formats exist, such as MobyPocket, which is managed by the company itself — is managed by Adobe (who charges a fee for each book sold) and is an application included in every electronic book which thus allows or denies its access or use. In other words, it offers a licence with limitations — for instance copying, loaning, printing and time limitations.

For a start, the editorial industry believes that there is no room for commercial publishing without DRM; however, the implementation of similar technologies in the music business has generated a lot of controversy among the public, and different consumer and user associations have judged that “DRM targets the public, not the pirate,” that is, it creates obstacles for the client who in point of fact is paying for the content (for instance, some music CDs’ protection systems preclude their use in car CD players, which results in a decrease in the number of previously existing possibilities for the user), while a pirate does not find it particularly difficult to breach those security features and make copies. Something similar could happen if applied to books because DRM also causes the book purchase and activation process to be more cumbersome than would be expected in the digital era. Curiously enough, the German bookseller association (who, along with German editors set up the platform Libreka!) decided not to apply DRM in their market.

Some alternatives for the sale of digital copies without using DRM have been proposed: their circulation at a sales price so low that no-one bothers to look for the bootleg edition (although this low cost is not always possible) on the one hand, and on the other hand, to ensure that every copy of the book generated includes the buyer’s personal information in its PDF format to avoid, or at least minimize, its circulation (since this information would expose the person who initiated the illicit circulation of the book). In none of these instances a subsequent illegal use of the copy is definitively prevented, and in the second instance above, a potential clash with the current legislation regarding privacy and data protection rights is possible.

There are other methods of payment that are being used in the music and audiovisual markets that involve not downloading a copy to the user’s computer: password access through streaming or other systems, whereby the product is accessed without any copy being made by the reading device. This option is called “books in the cloud”: the customer does not own his/her own copy, but has guaranteed access to the one stored in the internet. This is the proposal of Google Editions, expected at the end of 2010. This solution entails a change in the concept of property, due to the fact that one does not own a copy of the book, but only the access to it. With this system, Google allows access from any device with an internet connection; Google accounts thus become “payment gateways” as they are linked to customers’ credit card information, so that in principle bootlegging and illegal access to the book would be averted.

Generally speaking, what the large communication companies are trying to achieve is to control the process from beginning to end. Amazon and Apple promote proprietary formats, so that the very same companies are in charge of the selling of contents while taking care that these can only be read or reproduced using their own devices and none other.

2.2. Digital distribution of books

The main issue for publishers is that they need a technical medium that can provide a secure service (for economic transactions, for the computation of authorial and editorial rights) and that guarantees a single access to the book copy independently of the sales method (from the editor’s website, the distributor’s, or the bookseller’s): if different copies exist depending on the point of sale, then there are too many possibilities of the system being breached.

There are different solutions to this need: the large media groups have chosen to confront them using their own resources, although given the magnitude of the initial investment this must be done by associating with others (this is the case of the platform Libranda, that includes among others Planeta, Santillana, SM and Randon House-Mondadori); smaller companies have created structures such as Edi.cat. Moreover, other companies have emerged, such as Publidisa in Spain or Hachette Group’s Numilog in France, who offer their services to publishing houses that do not have their own platforms. The fact that a great technical capacity is required (as well as bandwidth, encrypting and security systems, etc.) means that these companies have a certain hegemonic power, as other publishing houses without those capabilities must resort to them, and this is why they can apply outrageous mark-ups, which are currently at the same level as the rates of traditional distribution in bookstores. Digital providers are asking for 50% of the sales price, which is evidently excessive. Some voices from the publishers’ guild are demanding the establishment of their own shared platforms to be managed by the editors’ associations themselves to prevent the imposition of rates.

Google Editions, judging by insider comments, along with Amazon and Apple have been accommodating rates at around 30% (although debates regarding this topic are far from over), which still is much higher than the calculated cost for traditional distribution up to now (the distributor of traditional books keeps 20% of the price, whereas bookstores keep 30%, increased to 38-40% in shopping malls and hypermarkets); while digital distribution cannot be considered cost-free, it cannot be compared to its traditional counterpart precisely because of the costs that burden the latter (transport, logistics, storage, sales force). The position of supremacy of large technology groups is imposing a deformed view of the logic of commerce: if up to now a series of costs were included in the retail price, these were justified by more or less tangible facts: the physical cost of distribution, the absolute dependence on the final point of sale... Although technology generates costs (for its implementation, maintenance, etc.), these are unutterably lower than those generated by traditional formats. As opposed to what happened or could happen up to now with internet paper book sales, selling digital books is a wholly automated process.

Now that there will be just one point of sale (the point of access to the internet) and it will not be located in different places, what is at stake is strategic supremacy, so that the customer will “naturally” access the point of sale via a particular website (or also using a particular device, if strategies such as Apple’s succeed). From there on, charging a rate of 30% or higher becomes some kind of transit fee or ‘banking commission’ rather than a compensation for actual costs. It is in the hands of publishing companies to fight this and thus forbid such an unjustified price-tampering.

Therefore, the book publishing sector finds itself in a state of uncertainty, a situation made worse by the previous policy of disregarding the problem until it hits you in the face. There is a pervasive fear of sending files to different platforms, a fear of the possibility of losing real control over sales; and there is also the fear, for obvious reasons, of the fact that if some sort of value is added to the digital book in the technical platform (links, multimedia products...) it may happen that such value becomes the platform’s property, and not the publisher’s; on top of it all, there is not a standardized method of payment to authors.

2.3. Print on demand

There is an intermediate model in the book market that could be a very viable solution for the coexistence, which could be temporal or definitive, of the purely digital or electronic book and the traditional paper book, namely POD, which stands for print on demand or publish on demand. In its purest version, it is the combination of the electronic book in PDF format and its printing to standards comparable to those of traditional offset printing. This model is already in use in several countries, such as the United States of America, Great Britain and Germany; the model was failing up to now due to the expense of copy by copy digital printing, but state of the art presses now make it possible to have prices comparable to those of the traditional book (at least if the higher actual cost per copy is compensated with obvious savings in other items included in the price of the book, like transportation, storage and inventory costs). Alongside today’s most widespread systems, specially conceived for self-editing (for instance, websites such as Lulu.com, Bubok.com, etc, which are also offering their services to publishing houses), a new alternative places a “virtual display window” inside the bookstore which gives access to a catalogue of digital books that can be browsed by the customer, just like traditional books. If he/she decides to buy one, it can be printed on the spot or shortly thereafter, using a machine that can produce a bound copy of the book at a cost and of a quality that is comparable to traditional printing. Although for the time being this system is used only for very specific works, in the near future technical advances will allow a comprehensive catalogue of books ready to be printed. This will do away with the concept of out-of-print books, as well as with the unfeasible distribution cycle described in the 2008 Report. The number of prints and returns is thus reduced, as well as transportation, and the work is done directly for the interested readers, who can be as many as could otherwise be reached in the traditional book market system or even more. This technology would help the subsistence of bookstores functioning as book promoters, because the terminals would serve the double purpose of selling bound copies as well as their digital counterparts to be read using e-books or the like.

2.4. The digital book and authorial rights

A noticeable trend in the last few years is that editors have been following the advice of ensuring that they have the digital rights to works, since many of the extant works in their catalogues did not include the release of those rights. They are recommended to demand universal rights, for all media (and given how changeable and unpredictable things are in this area, the formula “any existing and yet to be invented media” is included, which is at odds with the current Spanish legislation), and with the minimum temporal and territorial limitations.

A solution needs to be found that satisfies the real need for these rights, without implying a step backwards regarding the few things so far accomplished apropos authorial rights. Once reliable info is available that establishes the actual percentages for each element in the book chain, a new proposal on tariff making and a new partition of rates will have to be made. It is possible that this change in the business model will render the traditional rate system inadequate: we must not forget that internet business models are affecting the method of payment for authorial rights. Just like in the case of the music business, large companies are offering “flat rates”, micro payments or payment in instalments, subscriptions... Therefore they are trying to purchase rights “in batches”, and this might not be beneficial for smaller authors.

Whichever the chosen system for digital distribution might be (one’s own or someone else’s platform), royalty rates in the last analysis still depend on the editor, and that means that the traditional 10% rate (in some cases cut to 8%) does not necessarily have to remain the same, so given the new market conditions it should go up. At present, there have been different responses to this challenge. While some publishers have decided to maintain the percentage of sales price in the case of the digital book, others have preferred to continue using the same quantity that would be paid for each paper book copy even though with lower costs this implies a higher rate. Within the publishing sector, some have considered increasing the rates to 25% or even 40% of the sales price, which in some cases is already happening (we have an occasional contract on record that offers 50%). In any case, from within the sector it is estimated that the percentage destined to authorial rights should never be lower than 20-25% at worst. The Spanish Collegiate Association of Writers, for instance, released a statement on 22/2/2010 in which it recommends its members to demand between 30% and 50% of the retail price for the digital editions of their works, and a nonnegotiable 50% when it comes to digital editions of works previously published in paper. However, the aforementioned platform Libranda has in turn released through the media that their rate for authorial rights would amount to between 20%-25% (May 2010), although some of its members’ contracts that have surfaced (such as SM’s) do not seem to corroborate that, for they are based on a 15% rate of the retail price. Be that as it may, what is obvious is that in this changing environment, the most recommendable thing to do is to demand that contracts that include rights for digital books should only last one or two at most, and that the conditions be renegotiable after that time frame.

There is another option that has been suggested by publishing houses, which would calculate the percentage based on the net profit obtained by the company rather than on the sales price. This formula, in use to date for cases in which the book is distributed through channels other than the traditional commercial market (institutional sales, for instance) and that generally applies to the actual amount obtained by the company, and not to its “net profit”, would be devoid of any logic in the case of direct sales of electronic books, and would lend itself to the use by publishers of opaque and easily manipulated figures. Moreover, percentages would have to be much higher than the ones suggested.

It is worth mentioning that the reduction in costs that digitization entails is questioned by different members of the publishing sector, because according to them, the real saving would be in the area of printing and graphic arts, which amounts to 10% to 20% of the current price, but the fixed costs of design, editing, promotion, etc., would continue to exist, and digital distribution platforms would maintain or increase the rates demanded by traditional distributing companies; moreover, the digital book does not yet benefit from reduced VAT, which is an extra burden. As a matter of fact, as we mentioned earlier, there are more savings to be made on the process as a whole, due to the fact that the publishing house also shares to a greater or lesser extent storage, logistics, and distribution activities. One must of course not forget that the major stakeholders in publishing control not only production but also distribution and, as we have seen, seek to do the same with everything related to digital distribution so that it is not unreasonable to suppose that if they lose business in one sector, they are going to try to compensate this elsewhere. Therefore, their reasoning may be valid for small publishing houses, but not for large ones. In some cases the adduced arguments essentially demand that authors take on part of the investment costs that the distribution of the digital book implies by giving up a share of their royalties (by not increasing them or, if they do, by a tiny amount); this situation is not only unfair, but would set a dangerous precedent.

A change in the chain of value of the book and in the number and quality of participants in the process of its production and distribution is thus being created; such change is related more to a change in the participants involved than a reduction of their number (digitization does not necessarily imply fewer intermediaries but rather the substitution of some for others), and less optimistic views predict that this does not necessarily entail a reduction of costs, or that such a reduction can be hidden through corporate structure strategies. Moreover, serious threats of monopolization are looming on the horizon.

The demand for a higher percentage rate per sold copy by the illustration sector must be firm. At present, contracts often either include the release of rights for electronic media, but without setting the conditions for payment in such cases, or maintain the same rates that existed in the case of traditional books (even reaching the absurd extreme of demanding that rates be maintained for previously edited books that had a 0% rate for sales at the time). To top it all off, the non-application of reduced VAT in digital books also affects the sum that the author receives, as this is calculated using the price without VAT: since the price of the digital version will be lower in most cases, the sums the author will be able to get will also be lower, which highlights the need of a higher percentage rate destined to authorial rights.

Leaving aside the problems associated with an illicit or illegal circulation of copies, the arrival of digital media should not cause any further problems, but on the contrary should be advantageous as far as authorial rights are concerned, which are easily computed by considering the actual copies sold, both strictly digital ones and print on demand ones. The editor should allow authors to access the sales meter readings using a simple application, so that they can check the actual figures used to calculate royalty payments themselves (this requirement has already been included, for instance, in the contract model for digital edition set forth by the Collegiate Association of Writers in May 2010). Consequently, the sales model that is closer to traditional practice (copy by copy sale) is favoured and strengthened by new technologies, at least in the case of the authorial sector. In the case of the sale of rights by batches, payment will be a lump sum, which should be renegotiable once certain sales thresholds or short time limits are exceeded; that is, certain criteria similar to the ones used for pricing in the printed media or advertising sectors should apply, and an escalator rate should be introduced so that authors would receive payments in accordance with the real use of their works. Something similar should be proposed for newspapers: charging a fee for the use of illustrations in daily editions plus an additional fee for the inclusion of those illustrations in the newspaper’s archive according to criteria regarding time or the number of occasions in which the illustrations were viewed. In this manner, the initial fee could include the original daily edition plus a limited period of time or a number of occasions that the newspaper’s archive was visited, so that a new payment would be stipulated if the newspaper wanted to keep the illustration on file for a longer period of time or past the number of visits originally agreed upon.

In many cases the intention of publishing companies is to create a full-blown image bank so that illustrations can be reused in any context, which should be emphatically rejected by professionals.

Anyway, in the case of illustrations being put to uses different than those originally agreed upon, it is a good idea to take into account the recommendations made by FADIP in a report of June 2009 on illustration banks: “fee charts suitable for different uses of images should be demanded, as well as a system that guarantees, as far as possible, control by the illustrator of the agreements that are reached concerning his/her images along with mention of authorship and finally, contracts that are unambiguous and tailored for the different uses of images.”

3. ILLUSTRATION IN A GLOBAL FRAMEWORK

3.1. The illustrator in the international market

Another concept that has definitely changed in the digital era is that of ‘territory’. If it was already habitual for illustrators to work, directly or through the mediation of agencies, for customers in other countries, due to the new conditions of access to hiring companies (through e-mail or other electronic means) the number of cases in which Spanish illustrators who make some or all of their earnings working for foreign companies has increased. It becomes necessary, then, for future reports to show an analysis of the realities rooted in other places, but that however have the participation of Spanish illustrators.

Agents and agencies are the most used method for illustrators to manage their work abroad. It is unanimously believed that in the case of the United States of America, this is the only manner to successfully find one’s way in that country’s market from another country. The agent selects those artists who he/she believes are worth representing and is in charge of getting them assignments in exchange for a percentage of the fees paid to the illustrator (which may amount to between 20% and 30%, due to the fact that not everybody applies the same rates and some of them change depending on the type of assignment). Despite the obvious advantages (getting better prices for them, the creation of customer portfolios, the handling of paperwork and negotiations, payments and bargaining) the fact that they can have an effect on the illustrator’s career by guiding it through the filtering of assignments — because the illustrator is in a way isolated from the client — should also be considered. Moreover, one must bear in mind that agents do not guarantee a minimum volume of work, but do however require exclusivity.

In response to the initiative set in motion by in 2005 by FADIP concerning the Study on the economic participation of Graphic Illustration in Spain, the different European associations that make up the European Illustrators Forum (EIF) made a survey in six other European countries using a similar form to the one used in the Spanish study. A first approach to the data yielded by that study contained in an article by EIF’s president, Gert Gerrits, broadly sheds light on reality of The Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The study shows that in Europe, the trade is still seemingly very far from having reached a sufficient economic position. Suffice it to say that in France, 75% of those polled declares earnings of less than 12,000 Euros a year.

Apart from confirming the need for the work carried out by these associations, which have achieved great things for illustrators in the countries where they are established, Gerrits gives us a key as to the reason why in some countries better prices for illustration works are obtained: according to an extended belief recorded by him, “illustrators in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and The Netherlands see themselves as playing more of a commercial role than those in Spain or Italy”.

3.2. The illustrator vis-à-vis other creators

It is a fact that the professional problems of illustrators manifest themselves similarly in every country; globalization has not only made possible the international circulation of works without the peremptory need for the artist’s physical movement, but has also made other countries’ problems in some way affect illustrators anywhere in the world. Besides, all trends toward the kind of digital convergence described in this Report have made clear that the problems illustrators face are in good measure the same as those of other creators around the world.

There is then a need for ties with other countries — and thus the importance of slowly strengthening EIF’s structure and of not leaving aside other international forums — and also with other artists and creators from diverse fields.

The so called Oslo Declaration of 20/10/2009, the result of the International Authors Forum held in the Norwegian capital, analyzes the situations that are taking place in the international arena and issues a call for the cooperation among all creators in order to join forces to face the new realities.

In this context, at the end of 2009 the State Platform of Creators and Artists (PECA) was created, which aims at joining the forces of the existing associations in all fields of creation: using the Bergós Report as a starting point (Informe per una proposta d’estatut de l’artista i de l’autor, commissioned by the Catalan Institute of Cultural Industries), which analyzes the reality of such diverse fields as music, the visual arts, the stage arts, the circus, ballet and the literary field, the new platform seeks to formulate a more comprehensive document. Among other objectives, this document would set forth the actual possibilities of establishing a statute for artists to alleviate many of the problems that affect the different fields of creation equally. FADIP, one of the platform’s members, contributes with analyses on the world of illustration, viewed as a sub-field with their specific problems within the field of visual creators.

The fact that different kinds of artists are included in the same analysis allows us to confirm that there are situations that are the same in every field, such as problems related to Social Security or fiscal issues (in the case of the former, a certain discontinuity as well as a lack of coverage are detected, whereas a certain irregularity in returns is detected in the latter case), or problems related to hiring and the defence of intellectual property rights and the like (such as image rights). Undoubtedly, another positive thing is the joint recognition that the author, the creator (considering that the interpreter is also a creator) is a fundamental cultural asset of a country’s cultural and economic heritage, something that has already been highlighted by this Observatory on Graphic Illustration.

3.3. Protection of authorial rights in the internet

3.3.1. INDIVIDUAL PROTECTION

The copyleft concept was coined by the free software movement, to guarantee in this way that their programs wouldn’t be appropriated by unscrupulous companies or individuals. Only the most extreme wing of the so called copyleft movement cries out for the disappearance of any sort of intellectual property (as is the case of Dutch activist Joost Smiers, whose arguments become contradictory when he recognizes the need to give authors a year’s worth of intellectual property rights before their creation enters the “public domain”); conversely, as Lawrence Lessig — one of the creators of the Creative Commons licenses (http://creativecommons.org) — explains, what is sought after with this concept is indeed to protect creations and get the collective conscience to again value authorial rights as something fundamental in itself, and he does so precisely by conceding some possibilities that large corporations do not seem willing to allow.

Nevertheless, Professor Raquel Xalabarder points out that many of the things that are demanded from the copyleft movement make more sense in the Anglo-Saxon culture, which has copyright — an exclusive rights system — because Continental Europe’s authorial rights system (in for instance France, Germany, Spain) already includes them: “Historically, copyright used to be not as much a “property” as it was a monopoly of exploitation, which had a solely economic or patrimonial content; however, authorial right used to work not as a monopoly, but as property: [...] a kind of property that recognized not only exclusive exploitation rights, but also moral rights (with no patrimonial content), such as attribution and integrity rights that were non-existent in copyright (and that are being gradually incorporated into it).” In other words, some of the safeguards that Creative Commons seek are already guaranteed by the Intellectual Property Law in the case of Spain, such as the work having to be attributed to its author.

In any case, the fact that the copyleft movement also criticizes some practices by some management societies has given rise to the false popular notion that Creative Commons licenses are against intellectual property, when in fact the opposite is true: they simply set the limits in a different way in order to guarantee a higher degree of circulation. Copyright and Creative Commons can coexist without a problem, and in both cases the existence of a law that guarantees the protection of authorial rights and that implements the limitations of one or the other types of licenses is necessary; also, an entity for their collective management, that is, a managing partnership, must be put in place. The reticence towards Creative Commons that managing partnerships exhibited in the last few years seems to be disappearing, and VEGAP (the entity pertaining to visual artists, among them illustrators) acknowledges that those licenses and their adhesion contract model are perfectly compatible.

Creative Commons licenses are then, a system to indicate the uses artistic works (especially those disseminated through the internet) can be put to. Unlike traditional copyright uses (“reproduction forbidden”) Creative Commons licenses allow a range of possibilities for the user (free reproduction for non-commercial purposes, for instance). This type of license describes, in any country, the kind of legal protection that the work has; as in the case of copyright, this is not enough to prevent unlawful copies or uses, but it warns the potential offender.

There are complementary mechanisms for the protection of the authorial rights of works in the internet. Safe Creative (http://www.safecreative.net) does not offer licenses to utilize works, but “infrastructures to disseminate them in a more secure way by allowing, among other things, to register a work of fiction or an artistic or scientific work, so that it can be demonstrated, once the work is registered, that it was created before any other substantially similar one (and therefore susceptible of being considered ‘plagiarism’)”. According to its own definition, Safe Creative is “a worldwide registry of intellectual property that is global, free, open, independent and cost-free,” and it allows any creator to register a copy of any kind of work using any kind of file, which will serve as evidence before any possible legal action — or any other kind of action. It is compatible with any kind of use of creative works, as much through Creative Commons licenses as in the case of all rights being reserved. It offers a service, then, that is comparable to the Intellectual Property Registry’s, but in a more convenient and direct way by eliminating bureaucracy, and it also has a comparable legal validity (we must remember that this registry, like the Intellectual Property Registry, can be used as evidence before a court of law, but they can’t be used to guarantee actual authorship, because they just prove that a person, on a given date, registered a work under his/her name, not that the work is effectively his/hers).

Safe Creative, on the other hand, permits the immediate identification of registered images through a plug-in (for the moment, only the identification of images that have not been modified is available, but the idea is that in the future it will also be able to identify those that have undergone any kind of tampering), with which it theoretically ensures that the images are used responsibly by other websites.

A similar service is also being offered by Tynt Insight (http://www.tynt.com, the basic edition is free of charge, while there is a charge for the Pro version): by adding certain HTML codes to any website, it allows one to track any copies of content that have been made from it, which makes it possible to spot any unwarranted or unapproved use (of images or text) in other websites. Many publication websites are already using the system to find out the uses that the materials they publish are put to.

Similarly, the use of services such as the ones offered by TinEye.com, which also free of charge, is helpful for finding identical or similar images in the internet, which allows one to trace illegal uses of the images. This entails an unpractical search image by image, but this same technology will possibly facilitate the automated use of images registered by an author in the future, so that he/she (or also a managing entity) will be able to examine the uses made of his/her work.

3.3.2. THE AUTHOR’S INVOLVEMENT IN THE PROTECTION OF THE INDUSTRY

In this report, the different methods set in motion by the industries to protect the copies of their products have been discussed (DRM, ACAP codes, passwords), and they have proved to be unsatisfactory faced with an ever changing reality. The industry as well as authors associations have urged the authorities to intervene and to regulate the use of the internet for the distribution of copyrighted material without the consent of their owners.

In different countries, such as the United States of America, France or Germany, most of the measures taken have targeted the eventual consumer — once the infraction is detected, depending on the case and the country, the user is explicitly warned and if he/she continues with his/her attitude, he/she may be fined or even lose his/her internet connection. As has been pointed out not only by consumers and users, but also from the sphere of the law, there are legal problems concerning this kind of measures, both from the standpoint of the freedom of access to information (because of the subsequent prohibition to access the internet for lawful uses) and also as regards the protection of privacy. It is mainly for these reasons that the measures announced in Spain in 2009 aim at prosecuting companies which, through websites, profit from the circulation of material that is not in the public domain without paying for them. It has been proven that the illegal circulation of copyrighted material is carried out by a small number of websites, which profit from such circulation with the excuse of connecting individuals. Obviously, if the majority of these websites were not operating, it would be much more difficult to circulate copyrighted material illegally.

Professor James Boyle, a copyright specialist, stresses the need to find a balance between what’s open and free and protection, licenses, etc. On the one hand, it is necessary to be open minded and to try to not fall into what he calls “cultural agoraphobia”, and on the other hand some protection must be kept — in this regard, he makes a comparison with plants: water is good for them but too much of it will kill them. Boyle uses the example of the movie industry, which once tried to make VCRs illegal claiming that it would mean the death of cinema; however, once that fight was lost, it discovered that thanks to that new technology its revenues increased immediately. That is to say, maybe the problems that the digital world entails do not mean the end of the business, but just the beginning of a new phase.

However, we must consider here the other side of the coin. A growing popular trend against copyright has been observed in our society, which mistakes free access to culture with it having to be mandatorily free (this confusion may, among other things, be due to the English expression free culture, which has the sense of “free, democratic”, but some people believe that it refers to it being “gratis”, the other meaning of the English word “free”). Without discarding the presence of spurious interests in the subject of the media, it seems pertinent to start fighting this trend by starting with a serious analysis of the sector of creators in general: an analysis of the way an artist envisions his/her work and how this is portrayed to society in general (an image that is in many cases distorted, his/her creativity appearing to be “festive”, that is, effortless, or in another words, not involving any real “work”), or of his/her status as both a producer and a consumer of copyrighted products (and how his/her perspective changes if the issue concerns his/her trade or other creators’). Secondly, it would be necessary to inform society of the idiosyncrasies pertaining to intellectual creations and that they are different from physical goods in that every one of the uses they are put to generate royalties. It is also indispensable to be instructive in order to explain to the public opinion that the existence of copyright is necessary precisely so that creators can exist and thus guarantee the survival of culture.

Moreover another question arises, namely that, while it is true that the cultural industry is still necessary — and nothing seems to point to it having a medium term diminishing role —, creators do not necessarily have to completely follow the industry’s strategies. One of the keys to understand the disrepute that the concept of copyright has among the public dwells in some abusive practices performed by the industry (including the monopolization of circulation channels or the imposition of prices); even if this fact cannot justify in any way resorting to copying material without the permission of the copyright holder, it does help us understand some social behaviour concerning the issue.

Therefore, rather than taking ad hoc legislative measures against the individual consumer, it seems more adequate that such measures target a wider framework, namely that of large corporations, which in some cases can profit from both the legal and illegal commerce of works; also, a social awareness program concerning the importance of authorial rights should be urgently set in motion. Creators’ associations as well as managing entities should additionally engage in the implementation of the task of casting a positive light on the artist, viewed as a subject with his own rights, which would do away with his/her characterization as someone who is “taking advantage of a situation” in order to be able to charge money for the most unexpected reasons. The general unawareness of the principles that regulate intellectual property has the consequence that, even by all appearances educated people are amazed by things that should not be extraordinary at all — specifically, in the case of illustration there are some who throw up their hands in horror when they find out that an image they have paid for does not immediately become their property for life and for any use. The public image of managing entities being a bunch of money-collecting bureaucrats does not help at all either; if we add to this general lack of knowledge that of journalists viewed as spokespeople for the society they belong to, and their dissemination of these realities in the media, then the reinforcement of these false conventions is guaranteed.

The illustration sector must be conscious of the fact that this issue directly affects them as well, to the extreme that the digital revolution is, day by day, stripping their creations of their tangible component in an exponential way. If up until now the public would buy an object (a book, a record with its cover), in the near future they will buy the content, and the object (the device designed for the enjoyment of that content) will have to be bought separately. If people are not conscious of the importance of that content and if the possibility to get it for free exists — and this will continue to be easy for the time being —, only a few are going to chose to pay for it, and so many illustrators’ means of living will be endangered, if not those of the profession as a whole.

Anyway, the fact is that most of the contents gotten for free by consumers are not free in the strict sense of the word: thus, websites and companies are making money from file sharing among individuals, be it through the inclusion of ads, the sale of personal information (such as e-mail addresses) or through charges for internet access (in the case of telemarketers). For this reason, organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) are discussing alternatives of economic compensation for artists, such as payments to creators through subscriptions to P2P (peer to peer) services or taxing bandwidth, just as technology companies are charged a fee for private copies made using their platforms and recording media (what is known as “the digital fee”).

It would be advisable for illustrators’ associations to position themselves regarding issues that are certainly unpopular but nonetheless important for the illustrator or any other creator, from the so-called fees for private copies to the application of fees to library loans. Due to the fact that these are democratic instruments that respond to fully justifiable reasons, their use should be supported or at least publicly valued by the professional sector of illustration.

4. THE TEACHING OF ILLUSTRATION

As was analyzed in The White Book of Graphic Illustration in Spain (FADIP, 2004) a curriculum that included illustration as a well-defined subject was not introduced in Spain until 1995. That year, an Associate Degree in Illustration was instituted in vocational training schools (Formación Profesional II) — along with degrees in visual arts, graphic design for advertising and artistic photography.

Although there are some colleges of fine arts that include a degree in illustration in their curricula (in Madrid it is a Master’s degree), this is not the common tendency. In Spain illustration studies are carried out in vocational training schools; a degree in illustration is, then, a vocational Associate Degree and not a Bologna degree (a Bachelor of Arts university degree). In countries such as France, Italy, The Netherlands or Belgium, where illustration is considered a field of specialization, there is a university degree in Illustration Studies or a specialization in illustration to be competed in the final years of a degree.

The Spanish formula affects the amount of time required to complete the degree: in other places it takes four years, while in Spain it only takes two. With the expected reform of the curriculum, entrance examinations as well as the final project would be eliminated, and moreover, the time devoted specifically to illustration would be reduced to only one year, so that the studies would be further devaluated, and this is also intended for comic and animation illustration. Illustration is likened to a technical trade, to the learning of a series of techniques that will serve to enter a chain of production, and thus the creative side of the profession recedes into the background.

Due to the fact that the existing information about the process of revision and reform of artistic studies concerning training in illustration, comic and animation design seemed to be very much divorced from the professional realities as well as from the cultural industries — with lines of creation of curricula that are in open contradiction with the structuring of graphic illustration studies in European countries —, about the middle of 2010 FADIP approached the Ministry of Education to offer suggestions on the issue, and the response has been very positive, so that in all likelihood there will be an effective change in the near future. [The preliminary document presented by FADIP to the Ministry in June of 2010 is reproduced as an annex in the Spanish version].

What seems to be clear is that in order to reform the curricula of these studies, there is a need to incorporate into the training process the learning of technologies, not only directed to illustration in traditional platforms, but also including an introduction to animation techniques and to other applications that are having a more widespread use, such as “augmented reality”. Although no illustrator is forced to perform his/her job applying these technologies, the kind of versatility that any professional of the field should have nowadays involves having at least basic notions of all the available media: domestic IT systems already include applications that can be used by a single person or by small groups of people to produce works (such as animated fragments) that a only few years ago required the use of complex technologies and the involvement of large work groups.

It is obvious that illustration studies curricula must necessarily leave room for an introduction to the real professional world — so an outstanding presence of illustrators with an actual experience in the different cultural industries among the teachers becomes necessary. Also, time should be devoted to authorial work/tasks, where the author would become aware of his/her rights, and would not just be another anonymous member of a studio.

CONCLUSIONS. TO INSTITUTIONS, CUSTOMERS, AND ILLUSTRATION PROFESSIONALS

Digital media

As a consequence of the convergence of the media in the internet in the last few years, the net has become the reference point for the present and future of cultural industries. The industries, though in different ways, have been and are being adapted to the new conditions; despite not knowing how things will be in the future or which will be the actual new business models, they are all changing their positioning in order to be ready, because some of those models are already starting to function, their importance growing every day. Illustrators must be conscious that many changes have started taking place in the world around them.

At a moment like this it is very important for illustration professionals to pay special attention to the messages sent to them from the associations, to try to offer a joint response to the changes in the industry. It is mainly necessary to be aware that the traditional paper edition, be it of books or any other sort of publications, can no longer be the reference for the payment of illustration work, as has so far been the case. The unlimited reuse of works is much more significant than ever, and because of this, professionals will have to seriously consider the convenience of limiting to the utmost degree the time frames for the use of their works as well as the number of their uses (because territorial frameworks tend to be global and therefore cannot be limited).

The companies who commission illustration works, who are clearly undergoing times of great uncertainty regarding their future and economic viability, must however keep in mind that they cannot pass their problems on to creators, specially by asking them for exceptional conditions with the excuse of the complexity of the times, because by doing so at the same time they are creating standards of collaboration with their contributors for the future that absolutely break away from what has been achieved up to the present as regards authorial rights. Just as editors’ or publishers’ initiatives regarding the protection of their rights must be supported from the illustration sector, it is demanded that they in turn respect the working conditions of illustrators.

Concerning the edition of the digital book, the Observatory issued the following recommendations on June 2nd 2010:

THE COMMISSION OF PROFESSIONALS OF THE OBSERVATORY ON GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION, IN THE LIGHT OF THE PROBLEMS THAT THE DIGITAL BOOK IS STARTING TO POSE REGARDING THE AUTHOR’S RIGHTS AND CONDITIONS, AND CONSIDERING THE DISPARITY OF OPINIONS WITHIN THE SECTOR, WHICH IS IN A STATE OF EXTREME CHANGE, HAS DECIDED TO MAKE PUBLIC THE FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS, WHICH WILL BE COMPLEMENTED WITH A BRIEF STUDY IN THAT REGARD IN THE OBSERVATORY’S NEXT REPORT. FOR THIS REASON WE RECOMMEND:

• NOT TO SIGN ANY CLAUSE CONCERNING THE DIGITAL EDITION OF A BOOK WHILE THE GENERAL CONDITIONS OF THIS MARKET ARE UNCLEAR; A POSSIBLE SOLUTION (AT LEAST IF ILLUSTRATION IS A PREDOMINANT THEME IN THE WORK) IS TO STIPULATE IN THE CONTRACT THAT THE ANALOGICAL BOOK’S PUBLISHING HOUSE HAS A PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE DIGITAL EDITION ONLY IN THE CASE THAT THIRD PARTIES’ OFFERS ARE MATCHED;

• IF THESE OPTIONS WERE NOT POSSIBLE, TO DEMAND IN THE CASE OF THE DIGITAL EDITION A RATE FOR THE AUTHORS THAT IS NEVER LESS THAN 20%-25% OF THE RETAIL PRICE WITHOUT VAT (OTHER FORMULAE FOR THE CALCULATION OF THE RATE TURN OUT TO BE UNFAIR OR CONFUSING), AND THAT ALL THE CLAUSES CONCERNING THE SAID DIGITAL EDITION ARE VALID ONLY FOR ONE OR TWO YEARS, SO THAT THE CONDITIONS CAN BE REVIEWED ONCE THIS TIME PERIOD IS OVER.

REGRETTABLY, MANY OF THE CONTRACTS SIGNED IN THE LAST FEW YEARS HAVE ALREADY INCLUDED AMONG THEIR PROVISIONS THE CESSION OF RIGHTS FOR THE DIGITAL EDITION, BUT WE ENCOURAGE ILLUSTRATORS TO PAY ATTENTION TO THESE DETAILS IN THE NEW DOCUMENTS THEY SIGN, AND TO NOT ACCEPT THAT THEY INCLUDE ANY KIND OF CLAUSE THAT IMPLIES THE CESSION OF RIGHTS FOR MEDIA OTHER THAN THE PAPER EDITION. THE LAW IS ON THEIR SIDE AND IT DEMANDS THAT SEPARATE CONTRACTS BE MADE IN ORDER TO GUARANTEE FAIR CONDITIONS FOR EACH ONE OF THOSE MEDIA. IN CASE OF DOUBT WE ENCOURAGE THEM TO CONTACT THE PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS FOR CONSULTATION.

Regarding other digital media (for instance, periodicals) the recommendations are, we insist in the Report, to limit to the maximum extent by contract the uses and the media for the works completed, establishing graded rate charts according to time frames and or numbers of visits to websites.

New perspectives

The digital world opens the door to many dangers for authorial rights, but we must not forget that at the same time the door is open for a great number of opportunities. It becomes especially important for illustration professionals to keep up with the techniques and new applications that illustration is having, through a lifelong training and by keeping an open mind. The illustrator must learn to make distinctions among their preferences as consumers of cultural goods (which in a moment of paradigm change such as the present one may be detrimental for a serious analysis of the state of affairs) and the trends that the new markets and the new public are inexorably setting, because they are a guarantee for the future of their work. They must learn to consciously use the personal tools for the protection of their rights that the internet offers as far as it is possible, and to try to profit from the services for professional advancement (which are free in many cases) that the web offers, as well as from the exchange of information and even the possibility of lifelong learning, without forgetting the actual and more than effective possibility of desktop publishing (digital and through print on demand).

With respect to the institutions related to education, as is being pointed out to them, it is necessary to include the teaching of new technologies in the new curricula, especially those related to animation. Managing entities should be working towards adapting both legislation (for instance, in relation to private copies in the internet) and their members’ own methods of control of their work to the new publishing world of the internet, even though efforts are already being made in this direction.

The protection of copyright

In order to oppose the dynamics of misunderstanding and rejection of copyright that has been confirmed among the Western public and kept up — sometimes with undeclared self interest — by some of the media, it is decisive to make known to society the reality of copyright, its value and indeed its foundational quality for the very existence of culture. The illustration sector cannot take part in the demagogical arguments that have flourished lately that strip the aspiration of authorial rights protection of its legitimacy, because such rights are the basis of the work in this profession. Due to the fact that this is an unfortunately unpopular topic, it is necessary to focus on all those aspects perceived in a positive light, which value creation in our society. The personal support of creators is fundamental, but also that of associations and managing entities in particular.

The use of Creative Commons licenses for the dissemination of work samples through websites and personal blogs may be a good example of the conscientious use of markers for the protection of copyright vis-à-vis society, in that they remind the users of the fact that, although they can use the illustrations under certain non-commercial conditions, those images have an author and his/her rights must be respected.

Union of creators

The conditions of the current global economy and the technological change that is affecting every country makes it more than ever necessary that authors from all sorts of disciplines in the international arena unite through permanent forums for the exchange of information. Associations and managing entities must reinforce those ties and establish dynamic and effective mechanisms, so that they can offer consensual positions before an ever more monolithic industry, but that at the same time finds itself more and more in need of contents.

Translation: Miguel Fernández Garrido (CG Traducciones)

Índex

Observatory on Graphic IllustrationTHE CHALLENGES OF THE DIGITAL ERA

Introduction

1. The main sectors in this profession: an update

2. A current overview of the digital media

2.1. Internet business models

2.2. Digital distribution of books

2.3. Print on demand

2.4. The digital book and authorial rights

3. Illustration in a global framework

3.1. The illustrator in the international market

3.2. The illustrator vis-à-vis other creators

3.3. Protection of authorial rights in the internet

3.3.1. Individual protection

3.3.2. The author’s involvement in the protection of the industry

4. The teaching of illustration

Conclusions. To institutions, customers, and illustration professionals

Digital media

New perspectives

The protection of copyright

Union of creators