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Internet: a new tool


In Italy, Hungary and France. there is a widespread infatuation with the internet. K. Wackers-Espinosa was astonished by the explosion of sites created by playwrights in Italy "who have forfeited all control and are not concerned with issues of authors' rights" because it is a means of making oneself known all around the world. A similar observation was made by F. Villaume, who couldn't help remarking the French playwrights' fascination with this medium: "when someone in China requests a play, they want us to send it immediately". And while individual initiatives seem very risky - due to plagiarism and theft - they can however be organised and reformulated.
Hungary has already begun to take this new mode of communication into account. The Literature Institute financed by the Ministry of Culture "has created an academy for Hungarian writers where entire works have been put on line", explained A. Lakos. Translations and those holding the rights in several languages were carefully catalogued before putting the plays on line. "Playwrights who accept having their works put on the internet are paid a monthly sum by the government to compensate them in the form of royalties." As for the Theatre Institute, it has "a wealth of archives on Hungarian playwrights, and is digitalising everything in its collection except for the plays: the playwrights' histories in English and Hungarian, a synopsis of productions, casts, where and by whom they were performed, who represents the playwrights in each country, and when authorised by the playwrights, an excerpt". This approach is mirrored by É. Lansman, who advocated resorting to the internet "not for distributing plays, but for promoting them and educating people" putting excerpts on line can create a demand without excluding the publisher nor "sacrificing his essential role in the play's maturation process, in the relationship of trust and work he has with the playwright". In Germany, K. H. Braun is considering putting the Verlag der Autoren general catalogue on line, which would be very useful "in particular for the (highly decentralised) world of amateur theatre and in theatre schools". Finally, information portals are arousing interest, following the example of the one created by the German section of the ITI, which offers professionals safe access to filtered information.