NETHERLANDS

The Dutch Directors of Photography in reality do not get authorship rights, or financial compensation for their authorship rights in the Netherlands.
However it is stated in the law that a Director of Photography is in fact co-author of a movie he/she has shot.

There has been some discussion about the explanation in the law about this. This discussion has come to a sudden end ever since the minister of culture (Plasterk) spoke at the Robby Muller homage.

In the speech minister Plasterk made it clear that Directors of Photography are in fact co-authors. That has been settled now and can be seen as a step forward.

At the very moment the collecting societies in the Netherlands are fighting each other who has to get what money. This means that nothing happens and the government is demanding a solid, functioning collecting society that arranges the authorship rights in a fair way.
Although Dutch Directors of Photography have a legal bases for authorship rights, we are still a long way from actually getting this right. Not to mention the funds that should be paid for it, in whatever (small) amount.

Quote from the speech of Dutch Minister of Culture, Mr. Plasterk

“photography is the art of making still pictures and film is the art of making moving pictures, then for photography it is totally clear for everybody who is the artist. So even if somebody who is very famous will be posing to be photographed, that person may be a model or might even be a supermodel, but the artist is clearly the photographer. And nobody would doubt about that. In filmmaking the artist that everybody knows, obviously, are the actors. And the artist that a lot of people know are the directors. But very few
people know the person who actually is behind the camera. The person who pulls the trigger. That’s the person who makes the picture that we see.”

NSC board, 22-10-2009 Amsterdam – Netherlands