PUBLIC GOOD OR FREE MARKET?

ABSTRACT

European continental countries traditionally emphasized the character of the cultural possessions as a public good. Now the technological development, accelerated expansion, internationalization, and the commercialization of the cultural economy bear a new quality of contradiction between social and economic demands in the field of cultural work. This problem is discussed with regard to the framework for freelance work in cultural professions in Germany. The main focus is on the specific institutional arrangement, which supports professionalism in the field of culture, without providing a privileged status comparable to the established professions. One central column of this arrangement is the German copy right law, which defines – in contrast to the Anglo-Saxon model, created as an investment protection – an individual property right of ‘intellectual property’ (‘Geistiges Eigentum’), against misuse, and economic exploitation. Against the background of the structural changes in the media in the 1990s, the EU is supporting the reform of copyright regulations in the European member states. It is claimed that present EU directions, developed within the concept of a ‘European knowledge-society’, break with the leading concept of cultural professions, but without providing a consistent foundation to solve the societal challenges of present culture and media production.

Keywords:

• cultural professions
• copyright law
• EU-Directive
• knowledge-society
• work regulation

Notes

¹Critics claim that a considerable part of the profits of the branch are made from consumption materials such as toners and ink, which until now are not subject to charges.

²In 1988 ‘moral rights’ were introduced for the first time into the English law. However, this regulation is designed in a far more conditional form than in the continental version (Alemdjrodo 2005: 57).