Mr MELHAM(6.26 p.m.) —The Copyright Amendment Bill 1997 provides some major reforms of Australia's copyright law and intellectual property regimes. The bill introduces comprehensive moral rights provisions for authors of copyright works and directors and producers of films. It amends the law in relation to ownership of copyright in the works of employed journalists, to ensure that newspaper and magazine publish ers have all electronic and residual rights in the journalists' works and the right to restrain large scale photocopying, to protect circulation.

The bill amends the law to prevent the owners of copyright in the packaging and labelling of goods not protected by copyright from using that copyright to stop anyone from importing the goods. It will give the courts discretion in awarding the remedy of conversion damages for copyright infringement, and it introduces a sampling scheme for copying done by governments, to determine the amount of equitable remuneration which will be payable to a relevant collecting society instead of the present individual notification and payment to copyright owners.

The bill also makes minor machinery, streamlining and tidying up amendments to the provisions concerning the Copyright Tribunal, allows for broader interception of infringing imports and provides for statutory licences for copying by educational institutions and institutions assisting people with disabilities. It also includes consequential amendments, including adding references to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.

May I state from the outset that the Labor Party supports the broad thrust of these reforms. In particular, we support the broad thrust of the legislation to the extent that it introduces moral rights for certain work authors; indeed, the move to establish a moral rights regime was a Labor government initiative. However, this is not to say that we do not have concerns about the operation of this bill.

We have concerns about the definition of the term `author' as it applies to film and television programs. In particular, we are concerned that the definition only includes producers and directors and does not include script writers. Anyone would agree that script writers play a considerable role in the authorship of such works.

This point was succinctly made by Mr Geoffrey Atherden, the President of the Australian Writers Guild, in a letter he wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald on 7 March, 1997. The letter was under the heading `Moral rights' and Mr Atherden stated:

David Williamson writes a play—choose one, Emerald City will do. The play is successful and everyone knows that it is a David Williamson play. The play is made into a film and David writes the screenplay.

But according to the Moral Rights Legislation announced by the Federal Government, David is not entitled to any ownership of the moral rights in the film of his play. He is not an "author" of the film.

The legislation defines "author" of a film or television program as the producer and director, not the writer. In other words, the definition of "author" is absurd. All other countries which have enacted moral rights legislation have defined "author" in film and television to include the writer as well as the director.

Those are the words of Geoffrey Atherden, the President of the Australian Writers Guild, Kings Cross.

I also refer to an interview which was held between Jan Sardi and Rebecca Goreman on the PM program on 20 June 1997. I think it is worth while reading into the record the whole of that transcript, which is what I now propose to do, because it sets out the scene. It reads:

INTRO: Australian screenwriters are pushing to get new copyright legislation to include them. The legislation which was introduced yesterday, protects moral copyright but it specifically excludes screenwriters. Well Jan Sardi wrote the screenplay for the movie Shine . This afternoon he spoke with Rebecca Goreman about his industry's problems with the legislation.

JS:    I believe the real issue has to do with the legislation not recognising the writer as a creator or author of the film. It is absurd.

RG: Is it not the common perception however, that the director and the producer are actually the creators of the overall product; that they have the creative and therefore moral rights to the overall product, and that the screenwriter is just a part of that?

JS: Well take the screenwriter out of the equation and the producer and the director have nothing to protect!

RG: But if you took away the Director of Photography, the animators in Babe , for example, you wouldn't have much of a product either.

JS: No I disagree with that. Everyone who works on a film brings their interpretive skills to get what is on the page up on to the screen. If one cinematographer is not available to do the job, you get someone else and they'll apply their interpretive skills. The process is such that everyone works from the script, and it's what is on the page that everyone attempts to realise. It's to get the intentions of the screenplay up there on the screen in order to be able to share it with the audience.

RG: For the sake of not being too complex though, wouldn't you have to stop somewhere in terms of who has the final say on creativity? You say that the cinematographer can be replaced, but presumably the screenwriter and the director and the producer can all be ultimately replaced, so where does it stop?

JS: Well it's a question of saying, who creates the work? What is everyone there for? Generally what brings everyone together is a screenplay. It's the first thing that involves the director. It's the first thing that a producer will pick up. Generally it will come from a writer. Sometimes a producer will initiate a work, and sometimes a director will initiate a work, but I'd say eight times out of ten the writer is the initiator and the original creator of a work, which this legislation is saying the writer has no claim to authorship of, in the form in which it was originally intended, which is as a film.

RG: The other problem the industry seems to be having with the legislation is the provision for waiving of one's moral rights. What's your problem with that?

JS: Well it just seems absurd that here we are with this legislation being introduced in order to protect artistic integrity, and then we have a waiver provision to take it away. If they're allowing people to waive their rights to artistic integrity, why have the legislation? It's a Clayton's law otherwise, it's nonsense. It's the law you have when you don't want to have a law.

RG: So presumably it's to simplify the process—once you sign a contract in a film, you sign over all your rights, rather than just your copyright.

JS: Well that's basically it, and it's not right. Moral right is about respect, it's about our work being viewed in the form in which we originally intended it, and it's about respect for our names and our reputations. You can't take a screenplay, where everyone sits down and works on that screenplay, and then do what you like with it in the finished result, in the final process. Having said that, filmmaking is about collaboration, and I will have collaborated with many people. That doesn't mean words don't change. It's about getting the film up on to the screen. I think filmmaking is a process of attrition basically, and generally you do have to adapt. At the same time you're always trying to protect your original vision, your original intention and to get it up there in a way you intended.

RG: Do you think the directors and producers will agree with you on these issues?

JS: All the directors and producers I've worked with see me as an integral part of that triumvirate, if you like. There are three people, the producer, director and writer, and you're always protecting that and trying to get the vision through in the end. It seems absurd that whoever Daryl Williams has taken his advice from, has got it wrong. They don't understand the process.

That is there in that interview on PM , Radio National, on Friday, 20 June 1997. That says it all. We have also received a considerable number of representations from visual artists, including photographers, expressing concern about the proposed waiver clauses which, it is claimed, unduly weaken artists' negotiating powers.

Finally, I note that we have received lengthy representations from media monitoring services. These service providers, which provide a service invaluable to all members in this place, are concerned that the proposed amendments will have the effect of preventing media monitoring companies from offering their current express clipping services unless the new licences from over 200 publishers and wire services can be obtained.

The media monitoring companies are concerned that the new rules will extend publishers' control over media information services: the legal right to deny access to published news; unregulated rights on pricing with no access to the Copyright Tribunal; the right to limit services provided by press clippings companies; control over the simple faxing of press clippings; and control over the use of all new technologies, including scanning and electronic mail services.

Inevitably, the establishment of any copyright law or intellectual property regime involves the balancing of rights, and it is perhaps inevitable in these circumstances that some people will complain about the balance struck by the government of the day. However, the parliament can and does have a responsibility to review that balance and to satisfy itself that the government has got the balance right.

That is why the Labor Party will refer this bill to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee for consideration. This will enable all senators, and indeed the parliament as a whole, to evaluate the correctness or otherwise of the judgments made by the government in this area. We welcome the opportunity that the Senate committee will afford to examine this legislation in detail, just as we welcome the government's implementation of the broad thrust of Labor's initiatives in the moral rights area.