Purchasable Art and Culture

AKKA/LAA's vision for the future - cultural events with pre-purchased poems, articles about authors without quoting their works, promoting only purchasable works of art, because whoever does not want to write for money and on its terms will be read (found) by nobody.

I was unpleasantly surprised today by the AKKA/LAA price list published in the media, which provides for payments for reading excerpts from literary works and poetry at poetry day events, library and museum events, and cultural and community centre events, as well as for the performance of artists' songs. The justification - one must pay for an author's work during their lifetime (regardless of whether they want to receive compensation for their poem or not) and for 70 years after the author's death, either to heirs or to the vigilant guardians of copyright at AKKA/LAA.
 

Figure from the souvenir shop of the National History Museum of Latvia

The conclusion for Latvian literature and cultural history teachers: you will no longer be setting pupils to recite poetry at events, graduations or national holidays (free of charge); you will no longer perform readings yourself to demonstrate the richness of the Latvian language and strengthen the national spirit (free of charge); you will no longer promote Latvian culture by quoting examples of Latvian literature (free of charge).

The conclusion for wedding musicians - close your ramshackle shed in a hurry if you do not want to end up bankrupt, let alone make a profit, because neither at christenings, nor weddings, nor funerals are you permitted to play and sing songs beloved by the people without first paying AKKA/LAA for a set number of songs to be performed. And heaven forbid your neighbour Tonis asks for that old favourite Kalniņš song to be played a second time - if you agree, that is immediately a punishable act.

By the way, this summer at cemetery commemorations, take a careful look at the gravestones of your relatives, lest in a rush of emotion you have asked for lines of poetry by some Latvian author to be engraved in memory of your ancestor. Fine!

At Christmas, birthdays and other celebrations, be careful about writing poems in greeting cards, if you are still among those dying-out dinosaurs who see value in poetry not only in monetary terms but also in the spiritual. Lest some copyright be infringed?!

In other words, from now on only those works of art will be used, promoted, performed - the ones someone pays for. Not the most artistically valuable or the most beloved by the people (well, that old generation will soon die off, including the current 35-year-olds who were still brought up under the old value orientation that poetry is a reflection of feelings, emotions, experiences and reflections, that a poet writes not to be paid but out of an inner necessity to express oneself) - but the most commercially successful, the ones promoted by marketing gurus, with any talent kicked to the kerb.

Māra Zālīte (AKKA/LAA board president), who was still being taught about in school as a bearer of the national idea to the people and whose poetry was indeed recited many times at events (now, darlings, only for money), now seems to be a follower of globalisation and commercialisation ideas. But perhaps there was truth in her utterance in the poem where M. Zālīte prophesied a future for all Latvian young people: "Though fed, you will always hunger for fullness. You are young, everything still lies ahead of you. For everything you try to take for free - you will pay..." (quote from M. Zālīte's "You are young, everything still lies ahead of you", ha ha, I'm taking a risk)

Overall, if this thing goes ahead and the majority obediently pay like little hedgehogs, then the situation with Latvian texts online will become even worse than it is now. Empty babbling without facts, quotes from literary works or historical sources. In search engines you will find and read nothing about nothing (what is available on every corner thanks to AKKA/LAA)... or only in Russian/English. My position - as much and as widely available content in Latvian as possible, with mandatory reference to the author (to quote, reprint, promote and preserve for readers). Otherwise, what exactly are we planning to vote for on that 18th of February?!